The Aloft Champion
by Starry's Light
Summary: Rupert could hardly believe, understandably, when he found her. And now, after watching the love of his life crumble into naught but the shell of someone else's soul, he's not sure he knows who he is, either. But with her fall comes the fall of people, one after another, so with a swallowing of pride he lifts into what he hopes will be an ending of these ancient monsters.
1. Da: A Light

**Hellooooooooo! Oh _heck_ I am way too pumped tonight! Haha, I've been waiting to start this story again for awhile now, so coming back to it always makes me happy... plus I love all the characters and the plot and like everything else to actual bits and pieces so I get waaay too hyped about this story... but like, I do that about other stories I write too! But it's like! But this story!**

 **Todd: but me! -floofs beautiful Toddy dress-**

 **Trikko: -Yes, and I as well.-**

 **Torn: -AND WHO THE FUCK CAN FORGET ME?-**

 **Trikko: -I bet we just lost a good margin of all readers.-**

 **Torn: -FFFUCK OFF TRIKKO-**

 **Trikko: -And there goes the last few who were hoping you would apologize for your curse and be off on your merry way.-**

 **Todd: DUDES YOU GUYS ARE SO READY! BUT I'M SO READY TOO! YEAHHHHh!**

 **Rupert: … -slowly releases a breath and turns around-**

 **For all who didn't know, this is the fourth story in this series (and the last, thank goodness) but if you don't feel like looking into the others, you can read this one anyways! I fill in the details better than I used to three years ago so it should be alright, and you can always ask if you're confused, haha.**

 **So without further ado!**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 1: A Light

 _Dina_

Then there was darkness... and then there is light.

A light, a big light, warm and open, shrouding me in a collection of brightness, reminding me of stars. I cup my hands out and stare, eyes big, into the pooling light, at this light that was not here before now. Before now there was a darkness; before now I was cold, and I was alone... but this light: such a big light, such a warm light... I feel cradled by the openness of it.

When I step backwards, the light recedes, so after trying for the first time I do not step backwards again. Onward, onward, into the middle of the light. It is safe here, and it is better here, and... My mind, slowly ticking, rolls over that word again: safe. And I pause, thinking, only my mind does not think like I think it used to, for the only thoughts that summon are of a blank sort, like I am staring into a fuzzy, relentless void. It swallows me, wholly, so it surrounds me—or so it has been for some time. And the longer I try to think the more I realize that there is nothing in my mind about that word any longer. And I swallow—but there was. There was, at some point at some time in my life, in this cold and weary life of mine... there was something that had to do with this word.

The longer I focus, the harder it is, and I lose my thoughts in the light.

Pulling my fingers open, tiny and pale, spreading them about in the light, they harshly discriminate against the bleak blackness ahead. Strands of curling hair falls in front of me: bangs, layers. They are light, but not as light as the world in front of me. I scrutinize the hair, trying to put words to words that again refuse to comply, and I stare dumbly at these strands, as something is missing.

Swallow. I rub my nose, pale fingers close to my face. To dark eyes, pale cheeks, soft and pale lips. I look down toward a body shaded and colored by this light, but again there is something missing, and my mind nearly collapses at the pain in my head, at this feeling of this... _wrongness_ , of something _wrong_ with me. Hair, and eyes, and a head and a torso and limbs. I touch my stomach with warming fingers; cold tips cause me to blink, shaking, as I stare at myself.

What is wrong? There is something I am searching for, and the more evident it becomes, the harder it is for my mind to find it. I may as well have fallen into a small chamber, only to search the walls and find a corridor that leads into more corridors, and more, tunnels and tunnels until I have lost myself within the cold, labyrinthine depths of... Missing. Yes, there is something horribly Missing about me.

And then it comes. Slowly, surely: droplets in my mind. The thoughts begin to recollect with a single bite of feeling: blue. The color, sweet and slow and fulsome, spreads into my sight. The light is not just a light; no, for it is a blue light. The blue is rich, filling me, filling my pale-pinkish fingers and orange curls and dark violet eyes. The stomach beneath my hand is white, and bluish hints freckle the scales. My arms stay white; my legs bloom a warm and filling gray.

Then there is one less Missing inside of me. But it is replaced by another.

Blue? Yes... blue. Blue, there was something blue, a reason: why blue? Blue, oh, blue, why are you here? Why is the light not a yellow hue? Yellow is palpable and easy to explain: yellow, like the... the sun, like the world... around...

The world around me is not swathed in blackness with but a single point of blue light.

Blue. Blue again. My white-scaled fingers arc out into the lightness, and my lips form words that I have yet to comprehend. But blue is important, yes, blue is horribly important. But I cannot recall why... I try to think outside of blue, since I cannot remember blue alone, but there is nothing outside of the blue: fuzziness is my cage, and I am trapped inside. But there is blue. Yes, I wonder to myself, yes; there is blue.

The fingers brush into my face and I fall, curling into myself.

Then there is not just an image, and I am not just a person, and the colors explode with a sound. And my fingers go into my forehead and softly I cry: "Torn... Torn..."

My voice is... gentle. Very, very gentle. Soft. A strange sort of soft, like I am afraid of speaking and each word is terrified of the rest of the world. I try to pull from my position, but I am afraid to move; and I try to open into this new realm, this _sound_ , but I am afraid to hear. My arms stay wrapped about me and the word returns: safe, safe, safe. But what was it? Oh... something important... it was this... this _safe_ , but now I cannot recall why and I-I... It hurts me.

"Torn." I cough. "Torn." Yes. That is important. No.

I stop, staring at the splotch of shadowy blue in front of me. I look forward. Slowly my feet lift, and I uncurl, and I begin to move. And again the word reaches my lips, and I cry: "Torn!"

A beautiful sensation melds into my heart as the recollections fall into my head and meld into their places, and I whisper not a _that_ but a _his_ and I call for him again. "Ohh, T-Torn! Where are you..!" Again, again, I cry his name in this gentle and soft and afraid voice of mine, and the more I cry it and the longer I run, the softer and warmer it is. And the more I remember.

Torn is a small creature. Torn is very big. Torn is loud. Torn is very choosy with his words. Torn is nice. Torn is there for me. Torn is mine, yes. He is my... my... friend. And Torn is blue. He was not always blue, but he is now... I-I cannot recall why, but there was a time when he was not blue... only that time is not now.

And the next time I voice myself, I hear a response. Footfalls—hard on the strange land beneath us—a great explosion of color, of light, of _blue_ , that wonderful _blue_. He is calling, first, and that call is rimmed with a cry of warmth, a warmth that engulfs me: so I call louder, heart beating with my voice. "Torn! Oh, Torn! Toooorrrrrrrnnnnnnnnn!" Only the warmth is not all: the warmth is then rimmed by a strange melancholy. And there is an anger, a core of pure, throbbing hatred, that sets his scream aflame.

With that fire, that passion, that spirit, I realize there is a word. _DINA!_ And I realize that word is a name. And it is not a _that_ , either... but a _she_. And I realize, standing there, staring blankly into the darkness, that the she... is me. Dina. I whisper the name, suddenly invigorated, Dina, Dina, Dina. My _name_ is _Dina_ , and I cannot let loose that giddiness, so I continue to stand there, smiling.

And then he hits me. The footsteps, calling _barrum barrum barrum barrum_ , and the voice, screaming, _DINA!_ and then it all hits me with his body, full of scales and glittering pink eyes, and we both tumble to the earth below. He is on top and his clawed quadrupedal body is thrashing, every last bit of it. The sail on his back jiggles excitedly; the tail behind him thumps the ground ravenously; and his tongue, his slender, forked tongue, pokes out and gently licks my forehead.

And he is blue. And this is Torn.

My dimetro stays on top of me without question. Both of us are out of breath, panting heavily. My face is red with flush; his mirrors mine. Those big, quartz eyes reveal my face in his brilliance: my own big eyes, a long and narrow nose, angular and thin face, the long curls of orange hair, hinted by silver.

I pat his muzzle. I whisper in my head _Torn_ and he tells me back _Dina_. And it is nice, so very nice, and warm, for a time. The light cloaks about him, his warm and fire-laced body, so I can look up and see the vast endlessness of the cavern about us... but I am not sure this is a cave. I-I am not sure where this is, really... o-or if it is... even... real. The thought leaves me breathless once more, and Torn, taking in my composure, slithers off of me.

Watching me quietly. His eyes come down in slants; his forked tongue flickers, livid. _Dina... wh-what the fuck is going on? L-Like... sh-shit! I feel all like... like..._ He cannot find the words and stares dumbly, blankly, down his muzzle and into me.

We speak through our minds; he cannot use his voice like me. But I hear him—his big and loud and light-pitched yell. Rough on the edges, and hot, like fire. I remember slowly that he is loud: he is very loud. And if he wants to speak his mind, there is nothing that stands in his way. And fire... yes. Flame is to his advantage. I nod slowly, head on the ground. That is right. There is... s-something. I-I know... something.

He eyes me. I can feel his own thoughts—circulating me—lifting like waves in a vast and slippery waters. I am gentle—too gentle. And I am small for a human—but I am not a human either... I am... scaled. My tail—oh—I am sitting on my tail. A sharp stab of pain and I move, quickly, curling and pulling into a sitting position that prevents my poor tail from such a demise.

Torn giggles at this, nodding. I am thoughtful; Torn is not. He is assertive; I am not. There are pieces of me that align in a certain way that, I recall, with a gasp, he is... my protector. Nodding, slowly, again, the dimetro snorts: _Yeah. You're the pushover, and I yell the shit out of anyone who tries to walk all over you. That's... us._

Us. That is us. There is a warmth in me... at this _us_. So I tell him, giggling, _Torn, th-thank you!_

 _Pssshh. Dina, what the hell? 'Thank you'? For what, first of all?_ But he is smiling too, a playful grin flouncing back and forth in tempo with his tail.

 _Thank you_ , I tell him, _thank you so much..._

And he is giggling, but he is gentle when he asks me, _Thank you for what?_ A smaller smile greets me. Somehow this warmth is almost... t-too much, and I look away.

 _Thank you for... for a-a lot of things. I-I guess I cannot recall many of those, and you... cannot recall many of those either, ca-can you? But I feel as if you have been with me for a very... very long time. Wh-Which means you have been protecting me... f-for a very, very long time..! So thank you. Thank you for protecting me... Thank you for staying with me_. A feeling lodged in my throat suggests that it was not always easy... staying with me.

So Torn notes this. He sees this bluntly. Halfway nodding, then shaking his head. _Yeaaah—no... wait, no, fuck that. Dina. You're... my friend, right?_ I try at a nod. _And we're like close and stuff, right?_ Another nod. Giggling. _Then, like, fuck? What the fuck is that shit about you being difficult? I-I mean sure, I guess you have some really nasty flaws but... hey, I do too! And if I like being around you, then dammit, Dina, I like being around you! So no worries. I ain't goin' fuckin' nowhere._

Yes. I giggle a little more, and he asks me why.  
 _Because your choosy words are as choosy as I can... faintly remember them_.

He gives me this look. Then we both giggle; Torn flickers his tongue at my face, batting a paw toward me without quite breaking skin. _Ohhhh, hell to you._ There is a warmth inside of it, though, a warmth that has kept me going for a very... very long time.

But he is thinking, and he mutters, albeit reluctantly, _Hoooookaaaaay... I guess I do have a bit of a barb. Yeah, well whatever! Fuck being not-barby! Or—Or whatever that word is! Yeah, to fuckety-fuck with the word I can't remember! Shhhhhhithole._

The giggles come out, though I try to stop them. Softly, softly. The laughter is warm. Warm just like Torn... and it makes me happy that he is here with me.

But that thought halts us. We recall that neither of us know where we are. That this is a cold and strange place, and before Torn, it was dark and timeless. Now I feel... be-better, but that does not change things. That does not alter my lost memories; nor does it alter his. Torn, staring off into the bleakness of this night, away from his warmth, away from his light, his head turned far away from mine, whispers, _Dina... so many things are missing. So many things are... are_ really _fucked up about this. And... hell, I don't even know what..._

 _Y-Yes,_ I chime, weakly, and then stop, staring into what he sees.

We watch the outside world for a time, just him and just me. It is quiet save for our softly rasping breaths; and outside of that, I cannot detect much of a sound. I wonder, then... where everyone is. And—no— _who_ everyone is. And why... I-I want to know why... A strange, icy finger slides slowly down my spine as I recognize this feeling of the unknown.

I concentrate on small things at a time. Pulling back my pale fingers through my knotted curls, breathing, one step forward, and then I ask him: _T-Torn... Do you feel that?_

He is gentle, but his retort stings even so. _D-Dammit, don't ask that... I... ughhh..._ A scoff, and he rubs a bluish paw along his muzzle. _There's something... ughhhhh... dammit, dammit, dammit..._ Soft tittering, the great shake of his head. I watch, bewildered, as he glowers over this sensation, this knowing, that this is not... the first time. Smiling meekly, no, this is not the first time I lost all of my memories... we lost _our_ memories.

 _What should we do... Torn?_

 _H-How should I know!_ Shaking his head. Grumbling over himself. _F-Fuck—I'm sorry, Dina. Don't listen to me. I don't know what the fuck I'm saying. Gimme a few moments to react a little more._ He scoots ahead of me, just a few paces, and screeches into the darkness. Just some words, some strangled and heated words that do not collect into sounds. Just some more cursing, just a little more hate. Somehow it hurts to hear him. A piece of me throbs in tempo with his cry. This discord—it is mine as well. Perhaps I do not react like him, but I feel it, oh, in every last forgotten piece of my soul, I feel it.

Safety. My eyes skitter off to the ground, fingers shaking.

Sucking in a breath, his bright pink eyes compel me. He murmurs, quiet, _So... I dunno, wanna go explore some more? I'm thinking... if we keep looking, maybe... well it's better than nothing, right? Uhhh... Shhhhit, but what if staying here is a better idea because we'll like run into something looking for_ us _or... fuck that doesn't make any sense why would anyone in their fucking right mind put themselves through this. Dina, let's roll_.

And on he goes. Then he halts, tail erect. _Wait. No. Dina, you ride in style. I roll._

 _T-Torn..!_ A soft laugh pulls from me, my fingers narrowly missing it. _Torn..._

I step toward his halted figure. My fingers press gently into his strong, steely body, pulling into the scales as I pull myself up, slowly, carefully, and adjust to the spot on top of him, behind his head. My fingers settle around his neck, to which he chortles. _Okay anyways. The fucking noblest of fucking steeds rolls out..._ Pause. _Oh, shit, I am never saying that again. That was awful._

 _It was?_ I mumble.

 _Yeah, it was fucking horrible. I'm not sure what it is but... but..._ Torn loses himself, eyes blaring into the blank emptiness, the void ahead, but he is thinking, and he is trying so hard to. His forked tongue returns, flickering across his muzzle. Forehead bunched, eyes to slits; but he loses the thought and with it his motivation. A sag empowers his warm, blue body.

And then we go. The glow of the light upon Torn and his warm body, the great shadows attempting to collect upon us, a charade of motion between his movements and the receding black, only to fill behind us... I shake my head, eyes flicking to the back and front with motions. He has let go of his lost feeling, but I scramble for that thought, and I try to remember. Something else from that forgotten long ago tells me it is futile, but I-I try anyways, be-because what else will we do?

I lower my head toward the ground, pressing it into my dimetro. My hands fold in front of me, digging into his warmth, and hair covers the majority of his blaring blue light. Blue... it was blue that led me to Torn, the blue light... h-he is not the only one, is he? I-It is like I was thinking prior... there is Torn, and there is me, but such a world, only Torn and only me... oh, there is so much missing from this broken brain of mine. I-I can feel it, like energy spilling and sparkling around me, just out of reach to every swipe of my hand. The unbearable sifting through black seas for thoughts refusing to resurface is hard; I gasp for breath, struggling, struggling.

Missing. What is it, what is Missing? Oh... I wish it was as simple as that. I-I wish... I wish... No. That will not help me either... oh...

I love Torn... I know this, yes, my dimetro is special to me... but he is not the only creature to ever breathe light into me. A-And perhaps it is selfish in some sort of me to ask, but I... oh, I just imagine that feeling with the Safety and whatever other wonders have transfixed me with it... a-a-and it bothers me... it bothers me... I swallow, breathing tightly, heart beating, or maybe not.

Something strikes me. Flint. A Spark. I flinch. _T-Torn?_ He starts, flinching in turn. _Torn, I-I..._ I struggle, breathing hard. _Torn... what if... what if you..._ A face, a face—oh, dear, I can almost picture it, this face, this missing piece of me wrenched from inside of... _A friend. A-A friend... you cannot be the only vi-vivosaur, can you? There must be others. N-No, I-I do not think you are the only one._

 _Dina..._ Pause. _Sh-Shit. Dina, you're onto something._ He is breathing hard too. His muscles contort and flex beneath me, a flurry of excessive energy. Flames spark off from him in blues, and reds, and whites, and yellows. And I think other colors too in small amounts. Blue... red... blue... re—

We each release a breath at the same time. I cry out one word, and he shouts another, and in the end it comes out as a fluctuation of sound: _TRiinnyRiko!_

I said Trikko; he, Nyra.

I blink slowly. _Ny-Nyra..._ The face does not attach in my mind, but there is something. Something about that... name. Perhaps it does resemble but a sound, but that sound has memories, oh, hard-to-find memories embossed with it, and I can feel the thrum of my heart and I know that this _Nyra_ is greatly important, just as important as the Trikko who came to me. I cannot envision he, either, but a name alone is much greater than I was expecting to receive.

Torn is muttering that name, Trikko, Trikko, underneath a great extent of his thought process. His head, I feel, aches with the wondering, the pleading, the hoping, the catching breath of that name. It is like his own, and I recall it just as much as he, but the way he reacts tells me oh... this _Trikko_ , oh, if only he knew. A twinge of guilt accompanies it, as if saying Nyra instead of Trikko was a mistake that he has shamed himself over.

 _Torn,_ I whisper, _Torn. I-It was not this easy to bring memories back... ba-back the... the first time, wa-as it? I-I do not think it so..._

Shaking his head. He hardly notes me, muttering, muttering. Finding not much of a reserve attached to either name, certainly not as much of one as Torn found with his Trikko, I close my eyes and go on again. There were others, too... o-other vivosaurs that I kept with me. Yes... I am sure of it. The exact number of missing I cannot readily comply... but I know, oh, I know... My heart races in my chest, my head cool upon my dimetro, as I dig and dig and strive through this jungle of crozzled echoes, and in breaths bated I search, and I search... and I try not to grow too hasty or pained as I cannot find those last little names.

Oh—aaa—aaah... n-no, I lied, I lied...

 _Torn_ , I whisper again. He is not listening but I go on. _Aladee. Aladee, Aladee..._ Ahh-laah-dee... Almost can I picture the charming little grin... the caramel scales... the twinkling, beady eyes... oh, but an imprint... but a feature yet to be found fully. A hand goes to my forehead, the heat of the palm warning me to not pressure myself so harshly.

Pulling my hand back, I continue on. My head is throbbing but I-I could care less. One more, I feel it in the trembling of my veins; there is one more vivosaur I have yet to account for, and suddenly, with an awkward and disgusted snort of a laugh—I clap my hands over my mouth—realizing that _she_ would not be happy with me, if _she_ realized _she_ was the last one.

No name, but a feeling. A disgruntled, annoyed, irritable feeling. I-I like her... I miss her. Torn, I recall, did not always get along with her all that well: she would condescend upon him and he would not like that, but he would not know what to tell her as comeback material. But Torn still likes her, I-I think.

As if this thought compels him, he lurches from beneath me, a small stream of fire churning about his lips. _Fffffffffuck... Trikko, Trikko... Dina, I... I have an idea._

 _Torn?_ I watch, big eyes following his shifting body.

 _Dina. It's a stupid idea so don't go shitting over me for it, but it's... uhhhhhh..._ Deep breath. _Let's play a game. While I aimlessly fuck around out here. Yeah? Let's play... a game. It's a simple game, really, so let's—wait oh hell I gotta tell you the rules that's right_ anyways _the game's objective is... whoever can make... the biggest and probably awfullest story out of these names. Yeah, that. And of course we'll be searching for them, and maybe using their names will help, and..._

 _Dina. Are you listening?_

I start. _Y-Yes! M-Mostly..._

He giggles, playful. _Trikko was the biggest, fattest, most unruliest motherfucker of all time._

I blink. _Y-Y-Yes?_ My face heats.

More giggling. _Yeah, that's right! And not only that, but everyone thought she was a guy for the longest time because of it, so when she revealed that she was the most strongest, bitchiest girl ever, we were all like 'ohhhhh, shit!' But you weren't like that, Dina, you were all 'awww how cute how precious how sweet' and shit like that. Also you were crying. For Trikko, punk queen. Because you're Dina._

 _Also... hmmm, what-the-hell-ellllllse..._ Torn is peering into the darkness, eager, a small smirk curling his lip. _She was like... ridiculously tough, and she beat up anyone who ever stood up against her. But because she was so strong, she had a dirty secret!_

I try not to whimper. _T-Tornnn... D-Do not share her d-dirty secret... that is rude..._

 _Dammit Dina none of this is probably real. Uhhhhhhh you decide._ A flash of a grin back toward me. _Yeah! Dina, what's Trikko's dirty secret?!_

It takes me some time to decide. Aladee and the-girl-without-a-name are hastily stored behind me. _Ummm... she... she is se-secretly... in... in... a relationship with Nyra..! A-And Nyra is embarrassed about it, s-so neither of them tell anyone about it... But they are ve-very sweet..._

Torn divulges. _Damn. I was expecting something like that from you._ Then he pauses, suddenly haughty. _Fuuuuuck, Dina! What the hell? Why the hell is_ Nyra _in love with Trikko? I-I don't like that! Dammit, I don't know! I don't! I-I can't even remember why the hell why but I-I don't like thaaaaaat... uuugh... Shit, am I in love with Trikko too?_ Pause. _Fuck. No. I hope not. I probably am. Shit shit shit shit shit..._

Our little snatches of giggles in the heat of the darkness renews me. He is silly... my Torn. A-And I am thankful for him. Thankful that even without the others, whomever they may be, a-at least _he_ is here with me. I note that yes, we have been through a similar experience prior, and that while memories are returning they are not returning as quickly as we would like, but... he is here. And I know he has been here for a long time. Protection... he wishes to protect... _me_. Be-Because something about me makes something about him happy. And... something about him makes me feel safe.

No. No... no, that is not it at all. T-Torn makes me happy, yes, but... Safety, no, oh, I do not know... Frantic, my mind grasps back for that anecdote, Trikko, Nyra, relationship, _love_... love... I swallow, trying to breathe. Do not think about it. That... alleviated my stress in the past. Focus on the otherwise, o-on what _is_ here. Torn is here. That makes me feel... happy.

He goes on, undeterred. _Dina, you mentioned something..._

I like that about our relationship—the bond held between vivosaurs and... those like me. Pe-People. Yes. Um... we can share thoughts, and he has access to mine as I do his. _What was it, Dinaaaa—oh, that's right. Aladee, was it? Damn, that has to be the girliest name I've ever heard. I bet Aladee's a girl. And, like, super, like, girly, and sugary, and like... with that—the whole 'like' ordeal. Yeah! I fuckin' bet so! And she follows around Trikko, hoping to one day be just as cool and fuck like her! Only we all know that she won't. Well, besides you that is. Because you have way too much hope for little Aladee._

My lips graze over that last part, and a spark of thought strikes me. I squeak, biting my tongue, squeaking again. _A-AAah! Torn! Torn! I-I-I-I just! I-I-I just... I just... just..._ head collapsing into my hands, I wait, wincing, as he reaches into me. His fanned body gently presses against me, tail ticking nervously.

The caramel face, the bright and beady eyes all return with such flourish that I almost bite my tongue a second time. His tiny, curled face and the white spines upon him—tiny—tiny... He is tiny. A tiny... raja, yes, ti-tiny enough for me to carry. Another thought, albeit random and cluttered, comes back to me: the vivosaurs... Torn is fire, Aladee is earth, and they can alter with their shapes somewhat but not all so much. Torn can be small too. But he is large, mostly.

Yes, yes... nodding slowly. There is earth and fire—and water—a-and air... Nyra— _Nyra—_ air... she is... ye-yes. Yes...

 _So that's what he—oh, shit, I just completely dissed Aladee. What a great thing he's not here, haaaaaah... wow, I am an ass._

 _T-Torn,_ I squeak, _I-I do not think so._

 _Well you 'do not think so' about everyone._

My eyes fall apart from him, my cheeks a mess of red. _S-Sorry..._

 _No, don't... ahh, shit. Sorry, Dina. Again... ignore me. I'm in hell right now. But... but, fuck, you must be too! That's... right. Dammit. You always take things so quietly and swallow it whole and just hold onto all that fucking pain... Oh, Dina..._

Shuffling, his big and warm head preens into me. He rubs himself upon my scaled skin, and he breathes in a slow, long, breath: and out comes a sigh. Long, winding. Sad. In his aging-rose eyes there are slits of reflected pieces of me, of my own darkened gaze, of my downcast cheeks and worry and fear. I pull Torn close to me, my arms tight around him.

We stay like that. The search forgotten, the darkness surrounding his bubble of blue all but nonexistent.

When we go on, I slide off from his back, stepping down to walk with him. He snorts without much other comment. I stay close to him, the heat from his body pulsating into me. The warmth engrossing, I stay beside him, smiling helplessly. Torn giggles at the look on my face.

It does not take so much effort to focus against, but occasionally the thought will rub upon me again. Safety, Safety... the word... o-oh, there was something about it, someone attached to me... not Aladee, or Trikko or Nyra or e-even Torn... but someone else entirely. My hopes and fears, like string, unravel and decline the longer I pick at this notion, and it sends heat rushing through my body, a cold sweat upon me. This one, oh... the weight upon it is overpowering... but nothing... n-no, nothing at all comes to me.

Releasing a breath, I pluck it off again, holding onto it, trying not to focus too hard upon it. Swallow, deep breath.

The glassy pink gaze of my beloved dimetro skitters over me, holds. He knows... of course. He knows this feeling t-too. But... oh, how do I tell him? How do I put these emotions into words and gently paint the picture in his head? Because he watches me, and I know he is worried for me, and he knows it is not any sense of nothing.

 _Do you remember... anyone, who... um..._ Oh, how do I... _Li-Like what I came up with... about Trikko and Nyra, um. Relationship... love... I... T-Torn, I feel like... I feel like something very... unbelievably important is missing. I-I know, such as all else, but... do you recall... any sign of... any..._

He pauses, licking his chops. _Naw. Just a fucking bad taste in my mouth._ Pause; wince. _Sorry._

 _Oh..._ I struggle to nod. _That is fine..._

He looks off. _I—ugh—sorry. Ignore me. I'm being bitchy again. It's... a lot to take in, heh. But... ugh, you know that too..._

We stay quiet, trudging through this nexus. The rough, lifeless earth reminds me less of a cavern with each passing step, instead resembling a crunching, muted carpet, something old and tarnished from years of well-worn walking. I relate this to Torn, who is nodding, whose grimace slicks across his face, teeth furrowing into a nasty point of notice. He is still quiet. I can feel thoughts bouncing off of him, rebound, stifling. _Trikko_ whirls within this hodgepodge: it bothers him, irks him, a restless heat upon his heart. Torn does not like being irked, so he picks at his problems until they pick apart. But that is not always how it goes.

No. Oh... no, there it goes. Akin to affirmation, a stumbling thought compelled me... only now there is an overhang of gray. Not the first time—I swallow—no—not the first time at all.

Torn, releasing a long-pent groan, situates himself on his haunches with a groan. _I—uuughhh, dammit, I think we're going in circles! Shhhhit... shit, shit shitshitshitshit..._ Muttering to himself. Tail lashing in the heat of his brilliant blue light. Pink eyes frantic on the earth in front of us. The endless roaming soil of black and shade, his single light the single lantern in the night, the single star on the horizon.

Blushing, I ask Torn if he heard about the _fifth_ one, the one I began to unearth. He shakes his head slowly. The slits in his eyes seek distraction. I go on, quickly: _Ye-Yes, I do not recall her name, but I... I know she... she is, um,_ haughty _, Torn, I think she is very haughty. And she would be mad at me for taking so long to remember who she is. Very... angry. He-Heh... but it is this that blooms from her hard shell of... of... obsidian! She is very tough too, Torn... and I-I... I miss her._

Some part of him was listening. Some vague part inside of him heard me. That part is not apparent, eyes whisking the landscape, claws itching in empty soil; but I know he hears me, I know my Torn is here. Head twisting, he punctures another dot of null in the air; the grimace draws deeper in his face.

 _I-I fucking hate this so much._

 _Torn, what is it with you and your thoughtlessness? Dear ancient harbingers above you are a nuisance._

And then we hear it. I pause, fingers cupping over my untapped voice; Torn loses his breath; a stream of fire blazes in the blackness ahead. And after that the footsteps reign strong, run sure, rifle seamlessly through our frenzied hearts. _Tump, tump, tump, tump_ : thick, heavy, awfully full of care. First the bloodred eyes seek through the shadows, and then as she hits the light the black scales encircling her head enunciate: the white about her underbelly casts an almost ghostly sheen.

The eyes do not register. I gasp, remembering—they never have. And it is not my voice either that halts her. She... feels us. Blind and deaf, the krypto has detected us with naught but her mind. She stands taller than Torn, who hisses slightly upon seeing her; then his voice falters with the weight of recognition.

I dash toward her. I pull against her. The name does not come but the flesh is warm beneath me, not a warm in any similarity to the warmth of my dimetro but the warmth of a krypto whom I knew and loved in the past I cannot find. My lips mouth over words that refuse to recover; only one of her thick paws, near the top of her body, awkwardly pats at my head, first missing, then gently, meeting their destination.

 _Why, hello. I can't seem to find the words in my brain to label you, little one, but I get the feeling you're someone I can trust. That is—at least better than Torn. Oh, Torn. You just don't know when to stop, do you?_

Torn grunts. _Fuck you._

An appalled, purely scripted gasp. _Oh, I did not see that coming. No... ulh. You can stop now._ Snort. _So uh... one of you knows who I am, right? I uh... I can't seem to remember my own name. Shut up. It's not my fault. I bet you didn't—or don't—know your names either_.

Ah... that is right. Torn knew me; I knew Torn... we did not know even ourselves. My fingers flutter to the heart beating in my chest as I try to recall the bearer of those deep ruby eyes, thrumming hopelessly without sight, without hearing... without... without... I... ah... Not Aladee... I thumb through the names: Nyra, Trikko... No, I know it is not either of these...

She is... she is... is...

A hopeless stare passes between my dimetro and myself. He squeaks, asking, _Not Trikko, right? Or Nyra, or... Aladee? Uhhhh?_

 _Aladee..._ The thick-skinned krypto broods. _Maybe... Aladee. It may be Aladee. I believe so, yes. I think my name is such._ Nodding, slowly. Pause. Another nod.

 _Well shit. That totally doesn't suit you! Well... ughhh, whatever, so long as it works I guess._

Somehow there is a sense of loss in the name... it... it merely does not click—does not _fit_ in my head. I-I cannot determine another way to say it, how wrong the name feels on my tongue. Aladee... I think she is _not_ Aladee... but those determined, dark eyes, head heavy on her neck, her body rigid. And I think... I think she knows it is not her name either, but upon realization that neither of us know hers...

Was she close to Aladee... whomever Aladee is... before this? I-I... I wish I _knew_... ahhh, this... I blow out a breath, and I whisper, _A-Aladee it is..._ head bowed. Torn abides, though he also denotes Aladee as Al because he thinks Al is much less fitting than Aladee, to which the newly-dubbed Aladee digresses furiously. And then when Torn strikes her with a teasing flame she cannot taunt him in turn, having no sight toward him.

But enough gesticulation results in his face smashed into the soil. Nothing too harsh, nothing too brash, but enough to remember that she is not a null deed.

 _DAMMIT AL! YOU BITCHHEAD! FFFFUCKING BASTARDIC BITCHHEAD—D-DAMMIT! DAMMIT, DAMMIT DAMMIT! MY EYES HURT!_

The monotonous krypto softly cackles, her deep and illustrious voice pinning. _Your eyes. Well,_ I _never had sight to begin with, so I'd appreciate it if you stopped your griping about something so useless—_

 _FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU!_

They settle eventually, though it takes another round of cursing via Torn. A strange warmth settles in my stomach, watching them bicker, hearing them relate and reopen connections that I-I swear have been alive since long before this moment. A-Aladee, dark pupils swimming in her eyes, scolds and pushes my dimetro with an authority and a breath of voice that I hear far beneath this level of consciousness. I-I wish I remembered her name, I really... really wish I...

Sighing.

 _Dina. Dina—how dare you. No respect for yourself. You need to relax. Alright? Just—Just relax. At least you know your name. Take... pride in that. Identity._ Eying my wariness, she clicks her tongue. Her head is tilted in the general direction of myself—detected by the telepathic reach on my mind. _I'll be alright. I don't need a name to know who I am_.

Torn utters a guttural thought about how _Dina doesn't need a name to know who the fuck she is either Al like what the hell_ but the Al in response merely shakes her head, a low smirk on her face. She murmurs, _Torn, would you give it a rest?_ adding, _We all know that your opinion is biased anyways._

His crawling nibbles of mutters morph into nasty curses.

Startling quartz eyes glare into the unseeing body of the krypto. She takes no note, as expected; the growl in his throat raises. She takes no note of this either, unable to hear the noise inside of him, and Torn nearly does himself cross-eyed with passion.

 _Anyways. Dina, what have you gotten us into this time? Oh, all that repeats in my head is this... face. It's... not the prettiest face. Really pale—paler than yours. Dark locks of hair, matted hair. She didn't smell nice either. Oooh, it was putrid... And her eyes... I guess I could describe them akin to my own, which is sickening, because she was one sickening mess._ A tongue flickers out as she licks her chops. _I guess I can 'see' her because of your own memories coloring my own... so, ah. Dilapidated face, anybody?_

Blushing, I look away. The matted locks, the haunting skin... _S-Sorry, Ala—Aladee... um... I-I cannot connect much of anything to such a face. I-It sounds scary... sorry, it... it does._

Torn mutters, _Don't give poor Dina fucking nightmares, you mean bitch,_ a pout in his cheeks.

Aladee rolls her eyes.  
 _Well. I'm sure there's more of us. Somebody must remember... ugh. This is so annoying._ The dark bloodred orbs then pinch together.

Torn and his quarts follow, as do my violet. I press at my lips, and I tell Aladee what Torn and I do know: there are six of us, I am the only human—well, humans have skin, but I am of similar descent I-I presume—this happened to Torn and myself before... She is nodding slightly by the end. _Yeah, weren't you and he... uh, what was it... tortured? Amnesiacs... or something? Yeah, I think._

The words are on his lips. _Fuck... Oh my—sh-shit, Aladee, you're right. That's right... Dina, didn't we—_

 _Todd,_ I mumble. Todd... my foster brother. Curly hair, big brown eyes, freckles, tan skin... he grew closely acquainted to dresses before our, um, departure. I miss him... I miss him... but there was someone else... someone I... aagh...

Todd. Todd is a piece of my past. So I hold that too, with the other names. Torn is still muttering off to himself, Aladee and myself leaning into him. _...and, fuck, that's right, his parents tortured you for awhile... but we—I mean,_ you— _were so sure they'd kill me if they found me... uuuuugh, fuck, I hate that memory. Dammit, Al! Why that?! Fuck you. Whatever. Ugh. And then before that we don't have anything, do we... Before you were like... ten, I guess? Ish?_

My age. Frantically a hand cups my chest, where my heart is. My age, my... Face pinched... I never knew my age, a-as far as I can remember. I sag, nodding heavily.

 _Now look who's giving poor Dina nightmares._

 _GO TO HELL, AL! GO TO HELL!_

 _Oh? Ummmm! H-HelLO! HELLO? WH-WHO'S THERE!_

We hardly took note of the fourth voice at first. Pausing, muttering amongst ourselves, attempting to collect more pieces of our fragmented memory, the cry hardly passed us. Then follows, mightily, a _WHUMPH_ in the air, and, I realize, the breadth of wings. Wings—I—violent images scarring my face—angelic wings—an almost dragon-like and angular form—shimmering—green—scales.

I lose hold of my voice, which cracks immediately, darting off from the others, without a clue where I am going.

 _NYRA! NYRA! NYRA!_

She hears me. A squaa lumbers in the dark, thick air, slamming into me, propping me up, forcing me down. The beautiful, heavenly beast hears me; the nycto ace meets me on the earth, her wings about me. _Aaauuh! It—It is you! My sincerest apologies for the loss of your name, but I know that face! I-I know those eyes! I know this girl! Oh, my goodness, I_ know _you! I know you so, so well!_

Her lilac eyes, a compliment to mine, widen thickly as I relay my name. She is nodding, nodding, nodding, repeating it back again, again, again. Dina. Dina. Oh, Dina.

Torn and Aladee start after me, the first cursing my disappearance as light shatters our horizon and the latter merely shakes her thick head. This Nyra notes; then her own smirk twists along her angular cheeks.

 _Nyra, it's me! It's Torn!_ A strange amount of warmth accompanies his squee.

 _And... errrr, call me... Aladee._

The smirks twists into a simper. Nyra giggles. _Oh, Reyna, you poor,_ lovesick _soul._

The blind and deaf krypto behind me halts. Her body slacks, her tail hits _thunk_ into soil, her breathing halts for a long pause. _Reyna._ Whispering over the name, lips curving into the vowels and consonants, saturating the sound with a wishful yearn. _Reyna..._

 _So what?_ And with that, the feeling has been sucked out of her voice. _Whatever. Thanks, I_ guess _, Nyra_ , muttering, _lovesick fool._ She will not look at me, nor Nyra, nor Torn: the eyes dive for the watery blackness outside of our bubble.

It is not until now, the silence final, that Nyra, eyes slowly turning, locates the dimetro behind me, squeezing in toward her. His thick orbs, pained with emotion, go unnoticed to the nycto ace. While her simper presses off into a smile, a sweet and dainty Nyra smile, the emotion inside of him could not be considered any sort of mirror back. But Torn, sweet soul, takes no note, his tail wagging and scratching the air with a giddiness I did not see prior.

A little after, he turns for me and murmurs, joyous, _Oh, no, I'm not in love with Trikko._

Words begin to be passed about, Trikko and Aladee used at a constant majority, mostly met with unknown destination. The eyes spark and meet and sometimes never quite reach one another, and Reyna watches the reunion and the giddiness inside of my blue-scaled friend with a bitterness I did not remember until now. Her eyes glaze over me, and they pause long enough for a shift of pained uneasiness to enter, but then it is gone, and with a blink she turns.

She does not see the way Nyra has come closer to me. She does not hear her affable banter in every direction. No, but a feeling, an overwhelming feeling, of the chugging of foolish passion in the veins of his head, the streaming mirth inside of his voice, the feeling that fills him, and spills overflowing.

I step toward Reyna, then stop, sitting in the silt-like realm beneath us. My fingers shift into the soil, mussing at the tiny particles that crawl along and catch in my scales. My heart throbs aimlessly in my throat, searching for a feeling that I have begun to accept I may not find again. But my eyes jump back up to the krypto, her dark back turned to us, watching the horizon.

 _Oh... I have such a long journey in front of me. Ugh..._ She is quiet, and yet she is loud, overpowering, burning into me.

Scooting up, I shift closer to her. I tell her, _Yes, my dear Reyna... but... um... m-me too..!_

The body shifts. The bulk pulls up and into the dimly-lit flame, warmer and brighter with the aftereffects of my dimetro, murky and dull like an immense mountain. Pointed with her head, her held and cut and glistening body, the streaks of shadow and light only adding to the heavy thoughts hanging in her head. Her eyes, burnt embers, lay wastrel in her skull. A crummy grin—ironic—tilts toward me with the motion of her face. _Cute of you_.

I shift. She does not. The darkened expression stays, and with it, a strange, clumping sensation in my stomach.

 _We have a long way to go, Dina. But,_ she adds, a grimace coating her lip, _some long ways lead you to nowhere. Now isn't that pretty picture naught but a certain truth?_

She stays like that, waiting, before we start to get up and move again.

 **So! We've met three of the five vivosaurs of Dina's in this chapter ^^**

 **What's going on with Dina? Well, as hinted at by Reyna, and mentioned by Torn, they certainly aren't anywhere they've been before. And on top of that, they don't remember much (though more is coming back the longer they're conscious).**

 **Maybe the hardly-mentioned weird black-haired girl has something to do with it! Whaaa!**

 **The main character of the story (Rupert) will start showing up a little later. And in the next chapter we meet the other two main characters of this story, so things'll be falling in place with it!**

 **Aladee: -I-I'm not a girl o-o-o-okay?- ;;w;;**

 **Trikko: -Your actions are one thing, but I must admit that your while miniscule body is obviously masculine.-**

 **Aladee: -...- it sinks in -waIT TRIKKKYYYYYYY- whimpering -ST-STOP THAT-**


	2. Do: All my Fault

**Me: So now we introduce the other two main characters! Woop! One of them's not even in any of the gaaaames! If you're curious for backstory about said character, I... well I might breeze over their meeting in an upcoming chapter we'll see xD**

 **Jkonna: yehaaa, digadig! Only for the coolest people out there**

 **Dino: yeha totally**

 **Jkonna: diga-dork**

 **Dino: you're a dork toooooo Jkkieeeeeee**

 **Jkonna: but you're the bigger diga-doorkk Diiiiinooooo**

 **Me: oh and and and Jkonna and Dino have their own vivosaurs too! You'll see who, haha**

 **(Jkonna is pronounced Jih-kaw-nuh)**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 2: All my Fault

 _Dino_

It was pretty peaceful for awhile. Cool waves lapping at our feet, not a single storming squall on the horizon, warm but not too warm weather conditions... only a little damp from the last slew of rain. I must say, we had it good. Well. As good as it gets when there's three of you, like, riding this not-all-that-pleased krona in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of _nowhere_ , traversing the planet and all the other islands for a reason she considers, at best, stupid.

 _I'm telling you, Dino. I've told you before and I am telling you right here, right now: we should go back. Nothing else to it. Let's just leave. Go home. Say hi to Diggins and Rosie, tell them 'oh, never mind, we realized we don't have brains, so now we're going back home and our entire stupid journey was pointless'._ The floppy finned creature beneath the three of us flops her six large fins about her for accentuating purposes.

These accentuating purposes have yet to charm me. _Yeaaaaaaaah_ , I tell my krona, _not happening. C'mon, Droplet, don't be this way. You're just homesick again. Admit. Also your boyfriend went missing and that's probably making your Droplet-hormones all_ weird _and_ stuff _so chill. Just—Just chill._

Snort. _Since when have I ever taken your advice?_

 _Uhh, never_. I swallow mutely.

 _Yes. And I've never taken it because it's never been any good._

My eyes roll to the ceiling, to the bright blue sky above. I sigh, big and loud, smirk and all. _Ohhhhh, Droppie._ Admittedly, she really hasn't listened much to me in the past. But that's not the problem. She really misses her boyfriend. I mean, I guess it makes sense that she'd be super mopey and upset because of that, and then try to take it out on me and everyone else, and I am riding her, actually there's three of us, so she's not had much of a break... so yeah, I get it's hard. And I know I won't be able to talk her out of it because she is the most stubborn creature I have ever met in my entire freaking life.

But it still makes me a little sad: to see it, to be a part of it. I know it's hard. Droplet, dang it, I know, and, dang it, you know I know. Though that doesn't really help, does it? I can understand that.

In my head, and not on Droplet—because all of that combined weight would sink my poor krona—the soft, squeaky voice of a certain girl intrudes: _Di-Dino... I miss him too... I-I mean, I-I-I'm alriiiiiight, ummm... but I... I miss him too. He's... nice. A-A-And stuff. Ye-Yeah._

My ourano, her golden scales sparkling beneath a pinched and pursed face, holds her ground, or well, she tries to. I go off casual, telling her, _Oh, don't worry about it. We'll find him! It'll be fine. I mean, there's only so many places a seismo can hide... He_ is _gigantic..._ but I don't think she was asking for sympathy. She usually isn't. She's just Harei like that.

Droplet's long, slender head dunks into the waves; bubbles shoot off around her head, all this foam, all this shimmering. _There aren't many people as bad at advice as you are. Also, my gosh, you can really be insensitive; you know that, Dino? Insensitive. Like sitting-on-a-goyle's-big-ugly-red-spikes insensitive._

 _Droppieeeeeeeeeeeee!_ I whine. But nobody's listening.

No wait somebody is. _DIIIIN-DIIIIIIIIIIIN!_

I wince at the shrill, fluttery voice that only the birdlike thingy in the back of my head can make. Her gigantic, gaping cyan eyes, matching cyan beak, purple feathers askew all over her, bits of purple fur on her head, webbed toes, a tiny, stick-like body, tail wagging incoherently and stopping at random intervals just because it feels like it.

Oh, Lone. The nasaur's voice picks up at the sound of her name: _DIIIIN-DIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNGHHH!_

 _Whaaaaahaaaaaaat,_ I mumble. _Looooooone, whaaaahaaahhaaahaaaaaaaaaaaat._ And then she's silent for a little while, for reasons I don't even know if she knows, and then the voice returns:

 _Diiiinooooo's inseeensiitttttiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive. Soooooooo innnnseeeeennnnsssssittttiiiiiiiiiiiiiive._

My face curls into a smirk. _Thanks, Lone. Never could've done it without you. Saved the day. Saved_ my _day. Saved everyone's day. You are a miracle in my life and please don't take any of this literally._ And, in fact, she takes it literally. Well, she pretends to. All bowing her gigantic head, gigantic eyelashes fluttering, tail swooping with the encore of raised hands in the audience.

Huh. Looking back on that, I think being lost at sea's making all of us edgy... but myself mostly. Ow. Yeah. Totally. I wince thinking about my turd words, biting at my lip, muttering this really awkward and badly-placed apology. My hands crumple in on Droplet's slick head, and her emerging blue orbs snap at me, first with annoyance and then softening. The suds leech off of her face, and somehow or another it reminds me all of soap, soap disintegrating in the sink.

Her finned body, white on the edges, centering toward a seawater blue, wriggles in my grip. I've lost my hold, eyes blaring off to somewhere out in the sky, in the sea, something blue, it's all there is. But I feel her. Warm body. Slick and wet with the effort it's taking her to plow through these waves, plow into whatever land comes up ahead. Plow through it all for me—all for us—and meanwhile she's got her boyfriend on her mind, her adorable and precious and wonderful and missing boyfriend.

Wakening with the word, either "boyfriend" or "missing", I'm not sure, the fourth and fifth of the vivosaurs in my possession awaken. First comes a relentless chill, quickly masked by the heat of some really strong flare, and then it evens out and cools within me. And then they're both awake, blinking blearily.

 _I feel like every time I come back into the conversation, you're all talking in circles,_ helpfully Thomas mentions. His large and frigid body, held in its medal, his booming and chilled voice in my head takes up an immense power and immense tiredness which strangely doesn't leave him no matter how much he sleeps. Iggy, by his side, raises and lowers his flaming snout, arched and heated body just as weighted as his boyfriend's.

Ancients. The lovely old vivosaurs who created this earth, the first of their kind. The first of any of us. Probably terrifyingly powerful if I bothered to think about it, although maybe acknowledging all of that weight in my head could mess me up bad, I don't know. Anyways, good old Thomas the frigi and good old Iggy the igno continue chatting about how redundant we all are, their varying levels of sleep-deprived-babbling wearing my already-anxious mind thin.

They eventually teeter off back to sleep, and we're nowhere closer to land as we had been when they woke, and Harei offers that we all try and calm down when I snap back at her that we're all totally calm and then bite through my lip apologizing, awash with this awkward and nasty guilt.

This is when I remember. The arms tied around my waist, dark skin, fiery hair spilling all around me, sinking into the water, the head of the girl kind of perched on my shoulder but teetering with each movement. She is just as tired and just as moody as Droplet, and she is just as stubborn.

"Uuuuuuuugh. Man, you're all so friggin _loud_ , diga-do you know that? Well you _are_. Ugh. I think I'm seasick. Actually, wait, diga, never mind, I have been this _entire time_. Someone tell me when we get there. Please. I am never going to ever diga-do this agaaaiin... uulhhh."

She's also the most important person in my life, and the reason I'm riding my poor krona through an endless sea today. It's kinda scary, wondering where I'd be if she didn't exist. So I don't think much about it, and I let her sleep, and we get on our merry way. Thomas and Iggy aren't the only ones drained; Jkonna, head flumped over my shoulder, mostly unmoving, begs to differ.

My best friend continues her quiet, aimless moaning as the third and final passenger of Droplet attempts to voice himself again: "Ah, Dino, your ploys are... unrelenting."

Raptin. Soft, stony voice, great at hiding his emotions, a little too great so it makes him awkward.

Him, and Jkonna, and me. And all of my vivosaurs, and Iggy and Thomas, and all of Jkonna's. Us. Yeah, that's... us. I catch sight of one of my hands—scaly, black, thin and long—and despite myself I grin, a small and warm grin, an immensely relieved grin.

 _Dino, care to remind us about whyyy exactly we're going on your 'unrelenting ploys'? What exactly was it we're putting ourselves through again?_

Yeah, Droplet really misses her boyfriend. _Y'seeeee, for the, I dunno, umpteenth freaking time since we started, I might as well share my humble and time-worn tale. It comes from the olden days of... I dunno, I haven't been keeping track, maybe a week ago at most, and it holds the secrets of the entire universe._

Lone politely goes _ooooh_ and _aaaaaah_ , her tail wagging.

 _So anyways. Where was I? Oh right, the beginning._ Lone stops offering her attention. _It all started when I got over my lousy bum and we decided that we needed to actually do something about the fact of my sister. Y'know, the one I haven't seen for like... eighteen years or something._ Seventeen years, five months, twelve days, but it's not like I'm counting. _Back when the dinaurians were waking up from stone sleep and my sister got possessed by one of Thomas's and Iggy's stupid ancient friends, we decided to escape, because we were, like, two, and we were actual idiots._

The krona beneath me rolls her eyes languidly, tail kicking behind us. Raptin gives off a low hiss at that part; water skitters down our backs. _Oh really, Dino? What else? Oh, how about the part where the actual idiot two year old boy, the_ son _of the_ king _of the dinaurians, ends up forgetting about his past because it was_ too hard _for him to handle, huh? Want to elaborate?_

 _You know I do._ She rolls her eyes. I pat at her head. She continues rolling her eyes. _So anyways I forgot about my past for a long time and didn't remember until..._ I pause. It's that part. That's always the uh... the hard part. _Until, uh... I got a letter. Because Duna... found me. I-I was in my holographic thingy for awhile now, so I didn't realize I wasn't human or whatever, but she saw the form and sort of recognized me... so I ended up going to Vivosaur Island. So I met all of you... I found my dad, you know._

Raptin's little sister wasn't... around. Anymore. So uh... mentioning her name is still kind of... hard.

Jkonna slowly awakens to what comes next, and she mutters it herself. "Yeah, and then Dino diga-decided to go into diga...diga-de... um... diga-depress..." She halts. Sucks in a breath, tries again. "Anyways he became an idiot for a few more months but it's alright now and anyways we're actually looking for his sister, and because we actually have no idea where she is, we are _actually_ riding a diga krona through the diga water, _searching_ for islands to _search_ for her. Hoo, gosh..."

She likes to butt in at random and tell the rest of the story from then on. She's rude like that. But I mean, I don't mind, so I guess it's not so bad. It's nice... hearing her again. I know she's been exhausted after, uh, everything I put her through... when I "became an idiot for a few more months", as she so put it.

It's just... we don't like using the word. It's an... it's an ugly word. So uh, so we don't. An ugly word. An ugly time. It's easier to remember that we got through it in the end.

"Anyways..." The warmth in my voice, softer and quieter than it was before everything, kind of soothes me. Before everything I was loud, and I was rowdy, and I was even more immature than I am now. Before everything I didn't have a letter that led me to my father, to the past I'd forgotten as a pained child... a lot of me was missing. I didn't have Jkonna either. We met just after I came to Vivosaur Island. Heh—that's so weird, thinking about _back then_ , when Jkonna wasn't even around. Because... honestly I'm just... used to it, her company. It feels weird and... awkward and stuff when she isn't. Y-Yeah...

Droplet's quiet again. A respectful quiet. Memories wrap around in her head: when we met, when we met Pippy, after her, and then Harei, and Lone, and Iggy and Thomas and all that came after them. All that... intensity. The weight in my head. She's nodding slowly. Tells me, softly, _I was joking, you know._

 _Droplet?_ I have an idea where this is going but... I-I like hearing it from her.

She goes on anyways, icy blue eyes flickering in the midst of the waters. _I... really didn't, um, mean what I said. About going back. I know that Dina means a lot to you, and I know that for all we know, she could be in awful condition right now... and I know she means a lot to you. I mean... a-a lot. Plus, for all we know... Pippy could be anywhere. A-And he's strong, and... he'll be alright. E-Eventually. I... believe in him... and I know that... this is important. On... a lot of levels._

I don't think I'm... the only one... who became an idiot... for a few more months.

She was my first vivosaur. She's seen everything. She's the first one who got stuck with me, the first one who, honestly, befriended me, and the first one who's seen a whole rainbow of my emotional states. It's Diggins's fault I got her. The letter was sudden: he didn't expect any incoming rookies at the time, he didn't have any rookie fossils on him, the ones the rookies always got. But I was impatient, and I grabbed the first one I found—a lone krona head skull in the corner of storage—and from then on we got the turd beat out of us by all the rookies at Greenhorn Plains. And from then on... well, it's been us.

Really, I... I mean, I love them all. Right? I think that's how it should be, anyways. I'm happy for them. Happy to have them. And without them...

The sea catches my eyes. I swallow. Jkonna's back to drooping around me, her dark fingers tight around me, head warm on my shoulder. So I stay like that, breathing softly, and I stay like that a little longer. In the back, I feel Raptin's wise and quiet yellow eyes on us. He asks, "Dino... I never understood... how did you manage that feat, as a child? You and your sister... escaping? King Dynal was... destroyed upon your absence. Destroyed enough he nigh destroyed this world... destroyed with grief."

Droplet is quiet beneath me. Softly I breathe. "Yeah. It's crazy to think about. After stone sleep and everything... I was only, what, two? We were so young. But... I-I dunno. We were scared for her. And people do really, really impossibly stupid things when they're scared. So we used our dinaurian technology in our dinaurian necklaces and we put on the hologram things to blend in with society and we teleported and... well. I lost grip on her hand.

"I don't know... I thought escape would be good. I thought if we went out into the living world beneath us, someone would know how to save her. She was... a-and is, for all we know... possessed. Possessed by a creature to the likes of Iggy... and Thomas. And that's awful. And soul-wrecking and... ahh."

And then all of us are quiet. Lone, bless her feathered, purple soul, she plops out of her medal and lands, her tiny body and all, curled up in my lap, and she stays there: warm, affectionate. The sun lazily flows, turning behind us, hitting my back with a sudden display of shadow. Tail, scuffed and spiked hair, long and tall body. Sitting, legs crossed, on a krona. My best friend entangled toward me, the boy who was like an older brother in my albeit short childhood a little behind her.

I let out a long breath, eyes closing.

My heart feels warm. It's a nice feeling. I'm happy I can still feel it. I-I'm happy I wasn't stuck like I was, that I've gotten past that. It was a scary time. It was... really scary. I'm mostly thankful now, which is always good. But... but seriously, I _am_ thankful.

Yeah, it's not Duna's fault that everything went to turd when we beat Guhnash and we went into stone sleep and I got revived alright and she didn't. And she's been like that ever since. I-I know... but that doesn't make it easier. And if it wasn't Duna's fault, then it had to be _mine_ , right? _I'm_ the one who asked her to go with me. This monster from dinaurian past who'd up and decided on its own to come and attack this world too, when we'd escaped millions of years ago, planted some dinaurian seeds, stone slept up until a few years ago... to just take it all away again...

He took my mom. And a lot of other people, and Raptin and Duna's parents. But he took my mom. No one else's but my sister's and mine. My dad's wife. The queen—he took the queen, and he was capable of taking all kinds of others.

It's funny how these little things—trivial, really—facts, really—tripped me up so bad I busted myself. Then I couldn't get back up... for, well, months. Isn't that weird? That's so weird. Heh. So weird.

A soft clicking noise comes off in echoes from the snout beneath the waters. Droplet's icy eyes peek out, like a child surfacing from piles of blankets, and, peek-a-boo, she sticks out her tongue. _Dino, you have to be the biggest dork out there._

 _I also am the girliest man out there,_ I add, face all cool and stony and contemplative. Yeah, big and official words like that, like"contemplative". _See, I have no man points. Droplet, I admit: I have_ no _man points. None at all. I'm worse than Pippy. You guys overtook me. Actually I may have always been this way._ Smirking into the bright, bright sunlight.

She giggles. _Sweetie, I didn't alter a hair on your head._

 _That's a lie._ She giggles again. _A freaking lie_. Giggles, harder. She's shaking, her body shivering with sound. _A lie, I tell you, a turd-stinking, life-breaking, Droplet-faking lie. Oh my gosh, don't say that. You are probably the reason I lost my ego. And I must say I was kind of proud of it._

Her eyes roll, languid, fluid like her flutters of fins beneath the surface. _Ohhh, yeah, only someone with such an ego would say that. There are better things to be proud of. Like, I don't know, being the sole resurrector... resurrect... uhhhh, the guy who got the ancients on his side, that guy! Also I never ate you._

My foot aches, I think in spite. As far as I know she hasn't bitten my foot. Well. Recently, that is.

Jkonna—perfect moment—sags into me, sending myself into Lone, who loudly cheeps before nipping my nose and then sending the sagging motion backwards. Jkonna flops off of me, bumping into Raptin—which I can tell by the hiss beneath his teeth as her head hits his chest— _pffufh_.

Harei, ever the mediator, softly asks, _But Dino... is it harder accepting their spirits and reigning them into your... your, uh, potential, or is it harder to be the host of one of them for even a split period o-of time? Be...Because... Because..._ She pauses, spluttering.

 _Hey! Harei—Harei, it's alright. Chill. Shhhh, dude._ She shifts into a smaller form, plopping into my crisscrossed legs, forcing Lone to shift. She cheeps without nipping the ourano's nose. Mine kind of throbs. _I know. I know what's harder. Er... well, I guess they're both pretty hard. But we did our roles and now it's better._

 _But your sister!_

In a really creepy singsong tone, Droplet goes, _Ohhhh, Hareeeeiiiiiii! You're not helpiiiiiiiing! Not not notttt not notttttttt!_ to which the ourano whimpers, her golden head sloping between shoulders.

 _Droplet,_ like a really cool superhero, I reprimand the meanie, _stop that._ And she stops that. But only because she also feels bad about making Harei sad. It's just... too easy. Way too easy. Unfortunately easy.

Gently patting her head, I tell said pushover, _Shh, it's okay. We all don't watch what we say here. But it's okay. We'll figure it out._ I swallow. _We'll... find my sister. Er, one way or another. We'll... find Dina. I think. Probably. Y'know, dead or alive or whatever but I think we'll find her uhhh we'll-we'll probably find her is that alright I think that's alright..._ I suck in a breath, cheeks heating.

Just in case she frets about _that_ too. A real sweetie, Harei, though she doesn't always watch what she's saying either. Honestly the only one out of us who didn't usually screw up so royally was Pippy, but he's not even here. And... deep breath, that's okay too. Cuz we'll find him too. At least we've seen him, at least we've known him—recently—and he should be around... uh, somewhere. It's scary but... but it's okay too.

And we're quiet again. I had to adjust myself a bit, spreading my legs apart in a more diamond formation to keep my vivosaurs from getting my lower body to fall asleep on me. It's, you know, really unpleasant. Harei's head rests against one leg, Lone's tail on the other, her head cradled by my toes. Droplet's long, shimmering body holds us all together, me and Harei and Lone and Jkonna and Raptin too. And the sun glides along the waves, slowly, weaving, interlinking like hands.

Dipping my fingers in on one side, I watch, breathing. "Do you guys ever wonder what's going on with everyone else? I mean, it's been a few days now so they must've had some turd go on over there..."

My response is "Jkonna has fallen asleep again, so you are speaking with no one." Yeah, uh, Raptin. He's... Raptin. Rolling my eyes, I try again.

"Noo! Raptin, you're here too! I know you don't know Diggins or Rosie, but... c'mon. Dynal—my dad. You gotta wonder. You have a brain. You think... and stuff."

Cough. "I do not bother with such frivolities. It is... pointless."

Yeah, of course he'd go that route. "Raaaaptiiin! We're surrounded by pointless; just look around! Go ahead and be... 'frivolous' and stuff! It's fun!"

And of course I am met by a pause. A long pause. Something that might be him clearing his throat. Then another pause, and the coughing of the clearing of his throat once more.

"I, um... I do wonder. Sometimes. But... only sometimes." Smooth, whispering voice, like a cut and careful stone, washes upon me. It's relaxing and colder, clashing with my higher-pitched warmth, and Jkonna's too. And it's nice. "I wonder how Dynal would react if I told—er, relayed to him, upon protecting you, how... empty the seas are. And endless. And so... monotonous, yes? Blue. Blue sky. Blue sea. And a blue krona, and that is... all." Quiet again.

"I'm not blue!"

"Di— _Dino you know what I—_ "

"Raaaaaptyyyyyyyy!"

This wakes Jkonna. "Uh? Huh? Digadiiiiig! Raaaaaapptyyyyy!" Shifting, like she's turning around and staring Raptin in his face, right through those musty yellow eyes. "Raaaaptyyyyyy, what diga-did you diga-doooooooooo?"

"I-I did nothing!" Indignant. Probably blushing. "D-Dino is merely acting ridiculous again! A-A pompous and empty-minded insolence! Ta-Take your anger ou-ut on him!"

"Raaaaaaptyyyyyyyyyyy!" she crows, excited. This is quickly echoed by Lone, who caws out his name slowly and thickly. Disturbing. But expected.

Raptin's quiet, probably still blushing. I'm tempted to turn around, only I'd toss Harei and Lone all over the place, and they'd rather not. So I tuck my head over my shoulder instead. "Raaapty Raaaapptyyyyyyyyy!" He probably hates me.

Those golden eyes stick into me like blades. Orbs narrowing, sharpening, he pushes the leaning Jkonna off of him—who immediately reverts back to her comatose form—and his legs, which were stretched out, sort of _snap_ back together, with a click like his knees buckled. Carefully he works his gleaming scales, bluish-purple limbs and silvery yellow chest sticking out toward me, maneuvering around Jkonna, stepping around her pools of red-orange hair, and finally he stops and sits behind me, knees together, grimace plain on his curt lips. His golden eyes don't retract until he finishes—cheeks pinking with his ears.

My best friend's hair is swirling through the roiling waves. I wonder if she feels it. Since Raptin won't look at me, I stare at her, but I get the feeling she won't be up anytime soon. Somewhere in my head, Thomas titters softly, like it's not his fault or anything, like it wasn't he who possessed her, as short a time as it was, like it wasn't he who sapped I don't know how much out of her.

The smile on my face buckles.

Like it wasn't my fault. Like none of this has anything to do with me. Like I didn't tire her out after months of... of... _stuff_ , stupid stuff, stupidly hard stuff. Like I didn't break her spirit any more than him, like I'm not the bigger problem that must've come up.

"S-Sorry," I mutter.

Raptin's golden gaze sticks right back into me, settling like a weight—a comforting weight. "Dino." His eyes dart back, between she and me and she and then landing back upon me with a settling stop. Softly, knowingly. "Dino, you need not apologize so often. You are... alright. Jkonna understands what she has done. She is pleased with her efforts."

Softly. _Jihahnah_ , in that funny dinaurian way they all pronounce it. Makes me laugh. I kind of hate him for it.

He's taller than me by a good couple inches. Not a towering, more an older-brotherly. Dark and spiny blue hair, darker and much more pronounced than the glazed wash of the water. His pointed face. The calming and dark and powerful blue. The royal violet marking on the edges. A yellow we always teased him being "old rose". His tail slumped behind him, practically mimicking mine. Then there's me, my orange face and dark limbs, orange markings, a slate-gray chest that matches my eyes... that matched the eyes of my human form—well, the form I thought was mine for so long... it was weird, realizing.

A dark Raptin look aims toward my hair. "Can you not smooth it?" he mutters, an instinctive finger curling around his own.

Black spikes of hair, thick and... well, they've seen better days. It's not all that fun being trapped on Droplet for five or so days without stop. Then I have this one random stripe that's orange for reasons I can't quite define, and Raptin is glaring its face off, his golden orbs harsh-cut and stern.

I shrug. The grimace deepens. While he's staring, I pull a hand through my tangled spikes. Nothing really happens. The grimace deepens, his cheeks nearing more a cherry red now.

Letting out a breath, I turn back to the front. My fingers sink into Droplet's head. She's humming something I can't quite recognize. Just softly, just quietly. Raptin, behind me, continues on, asking, "Dino... do you recall any memories of all of us?"

Oh. Me and him. Duna and... my sister. That's... right. Swallowing, my thoughts sift in my head. "Yeah, uh... I remember mostly everything, I guess, since it was mostly chilling in the part of my brain that pretended it didn't exist or something. But uh, yeah... You were overly protective. You'd get all mad if one of us hurt someone else... ahahaaah. It was funny. I made fun of you a lot. Duna thought it was funny, but my sister'd always feel bad afterward. I never got why. Man, being a kid... everything was so simple." Shaking my head. At some point I started humming under my breath too. It completely clashes with Droplet's.

"Yes... many things were simple then. But it was not all..." Soft coughing. "Guhnash, loss of our original word... stone sleep, claiming this one after. It was... surprising, finding the dinaurian seeds we planted to spout into..." He pauses, this ensued by I'm guessing a disgusted glance in Jkonna's direction.

"But humans are cool too!"

"No, that is not what I—" He breaks off. Waiting. When I don't respond, he hesitantly goes on. "I suppose humans can be this 'cool' you so speak of. Tolerable. At best, perhaps a stretch of the word... fun. But... only a stretch." Then he's quiet again.

Okay, I'm sorry, I have to. Smiling at the sky, I go, "Raaaptin. You can stop, you know. You're not fooling either of us. Or my dad, for that matter. It's okay. You can stop."

It's funny. He doesn't even try to break me off. Waiting, patiently, for me to shut up. "I-I have not a _clue_ what you mean. Di _-Dino_." Oh, Raptin. "Jkonna is merely a _tolerable_ part of my lifestyle; I-I would have no reaction to any future disappearances..!" _Raptin_. "She is... alright. Perhaps fun. A-At _times_. It is as I have told yhh—Puhh-Please cease with that delirious stare!"

I had to turn. I had to give him that look. He's so cautious, but he's so freaking obvious that he's wasting energy over it.

Without "ceasing" that "delirious stare", I turn back around. Droplet makes some grunt comment that I think translates to some form of Droplet pride. I kind of want to push Jkonna off of my krona just to see Raptin's reaction. Musing, my krona's nodding, like this is hilarious and we totally should.

 _Speaking of—Oh, gah, dang it! Dino! Assistance, would you?_

Twisting again, peering past a silently brooding Raptin, I note the strands of five-feet-long hair tangled in Droplet's flippers. I push past said brooder, sitting up in front of my best friend, and carefully I pull back the flaming strings into a gloppy mass of dripping color. I stare at my hands, a little dumfounded. _Uhhhhh! Droplet, now what the heck do I do with it?_

Waking up Jkonna would be an unpleasant thing to do.

 _I-I don't know! I don't have freaking hair! Dino, just keep it out of my way or we'll all be screwed over! Alright?! Alright!_ Pause. _Hey—Didn't your sister have long hair? Wait you haven't seen her in years, also that has nothing to do with this, uhhhhhhh... Any hair bands? Rosie kept hers in two... no? Oh. Well I guess it makes sense you wouldn't have any. Ugh._ Her front two flippers clap into the waters at what I'm guessing is a shrug. She's got nothing.

He probably heard most of that, but I better ask him anyways. "Raptin! Raptin! Suggestions!"

"Er... cut... her hair? Should you cut it from those wet and trapping binds?" Yeah okay he has no idea.

Whimpering slightly, I take in a breath. "Well! I-I've had worse ideas! Yeaahahaa... hah... aaahhhhh..." Pulling all these cold strands into what sort of resembles her hair on a regular basis—only a little longer than her entire freaking body—all darkish and wettish and dripping, I begin an awful attempt to braid it. I've never braided a thing before this. No, nothing. No hair, no—uh—baskets, no pretzels, no string. I feel constantly like something's going to flop out of place or come out or I-I don't know, it's weird, I'm basically tying more knots in her hair than she already had while pretending this is completely normal.

Once I've got something that resembles both a gigantic ball of hair and some sort of maybe braid, and I'm standing over her head—very tight-knit bun—I plop it down behind her sleepy face and move back to the front, where Harei and Lone and Raptin are waiting. The latter's got another disgusted look on his face.

This time I sit sideways, toward the edge, letting my feet fall into the churning waves. Raptin scoots closer—feet squeaking over the slick, slippery fins on Droplet's flippery body. "She will not be pleased upon awakening." I'm tempted to retort that I'll just tell her that _he_ did it, but I decide against it.

"She has a lot of hair. She's been through worse with it. I promise you, she's been through worse." Being a digadig, I mean, she's been underground in their digadig trails and she's been in their forest and I don't know how many things have gotten stuck in that sheen of hair, and I doubt she does either. That's not including all the other insane things she's done. Jkonna's... well, she's done a lot of stupid stuff. I mean, everyone has—me most especially—but she's... gosh, she's in another world entirely, it sometimes feels like.

Raptin, pausing, takes in a soft breath. "Dino, what is it that bothers you?"

Oh. Dang it. Cheeks flushing, I fidget in place. N-Now it's not obvious or anything, n-not at all. Ah, gah... "It's just... I-I don't know. We haven't seen land in forever, which is waaaaay more disorienting than I thought it'd be, and I... I just..." Deep breath. Swallow. "It's still... crazy. Remembering everything, thinking about it. Having all these people who care about me but at the same time all this... hurt. Heh. I know I'm not the easiest person to get along with, either..."

Disorienting. Blushing, I swallow again, not really looking at anything, kind of looking at the water in front of me. My feet making miniature whirlpools as the water skims past, fast and long and churning beneath Droplet's rippling power. One of my hands goes back to her head. I like resting it there.

"Yes, but..." Raptin, muttering to himself. Trying to find the words to say it. "But Dino... Perhaps it is... 'crazy', but I... but..." Floundering for words, failing, falling.

"Oh! No. No no." I shake my head. "It's okay. I'm not... going crazy again, or anything. I'm not gonna lose my mind a second time, I promise. Doing it once was... was..." Small breath. "Intense." I find myself running out of breath so I awkwardly breathe all shallow and ragged for awhile. "Very, very intense. I don't wanna do that again. I wanna protect Jkonna from having to do all that again. She's been through a lot too..." My head spouts upward again as I jolt. "As—As have you! And... probably everyone. Honestly. Heh..." Looking down again.

Finally. One deep breath, more scooting, and he sits cross-legged beside me. Droplet grumbles something about weight disposition but then she's quiet, calming. "This is... about... you." I pause, glancing toward him. "About you, not about her pain, not about my pain. Your pain. Your trials. You suffer... as well... yes? Then do not... put it under guise like so. That... must be a tough war... to wage. But you are here now. That is good. Very... good."

Nodding slowly to himself. Giggling, I nod with him. Then he blushes. Then he looks away. My laughs get a little louder. He almost scoots off but when he tries to move he plants his hands down and one of them lands on mine and then his ears are red too. Oh, Raptin.

"That is good," I echo, and he gives me this funny Raptin stare. But he doesn't move. Relaxing, breathing. "Yeah, super good! Like super... hero! Raptin, remember when we saved the world from Guhnash? We're superheroes, aren't we? Hwuhhhh..."

The stare doesn't go away. Smirking, softy. Nodding. "Yes, I recall. I was the one who implanted the sub-idolcomps to, as we thought, erase humankind... instead accidentally routing him to find another planet to... devour. Back when you were still reacting to having found your father; and him, likewise to his son. I... suppose I did not believe it at the time. It was... hard, yes?"

"Are you an anti-hero then?"

He almost laughs. Almost. Dang it. "Perhaps? What are you, Dino?" Watching me curiously.

"Awww, I'm just a big weirdo, let's be honest."

A hand claps over his lips as he turns again.

Dang it, Raptin.

You know what? No. That counts. That totally, completely, as stupid as it was, it freaking counts. I am _counting_ that.

That's when Droplet lurches.

 _KER-PLOOOSHH_!

I go teetering into the water, Raptin following—angrily fighting the waves. He latches onto me, kicking, pulling, fighting, and ohhh my gosh the water is way too cold and I shove him forwards and one of us manages and the other manages and on top of Droplet we cough up the stench of the sea. It wakes Jkonna, who shoves herself into me, gigantic ball of hair and all, and we stay close like that. Our eyes tilt when my krona coughs, pulsing onward, trying to get my attention.

And then we see it. All three of us. Lone shrieks; Harei cries out with tears in her eyes. My krona pulls her tail up high in the air, shadow pitching over us, then lets it fall with a _CRRRSHHHPOOOOH_ into the waters, sending a smattering of sparkling droplets all around.

None of us can believe it. But everyone else is shocked speechless so I'm the one who gets to do it:

"AAUUUH! FRIGGIN LAND! OH MY TURD, GUYS, IT'S AN ACTUAL ISLAND!"

Jkonna's next. "AN ACTUAL ISLAND!" Mocking me on some level.

Raptin merely shakes his head, closes his eyes, one hand pinching his nose.

My best friend and I turn, rapidly jolting up and down and up and down in place. One of us nearly darts off of Droplet with the attempt to swim for it, but then her voice drops a few octaves and reaches terrifyingly-cold when she tells us not to. It makes sense when I start calming down that, I mean, she's like way faster than us, so not even our adrenaline-hijacked systems could get us there sooner, but still I mean we _want_ to.

Her hair steadily unties and unties from its gloppy mass. Pieces of kinda-wet strands slap at me and the air and Raptin, her big grin not excepted. Eventually she spits at it, managing with the pieces that cling to her, and then I just watch her and this big ball of mirth in my chest evaporates and I'm laughing on the flat of my back, Droplet's head beneath me.

She snorts. _You are such a nutcase. Dear ancients above, Dino._

 _Seconded_ , mutters Iggy, who actually is one of the dear ancients above.

She goes on to add, giggling, _Yeah, but I didn't say that was a bad thing,_ to which Iggy's flaming igno face puckers. See, that's the cool thing about my krona, and the uncool thing about him.

Harei and Lone had scattered to opposite sides of my face when I nearly fell on top of them, the first retreating and freaking out a little bit by my ear while the latter jumps on my chest and takes it like her freaking throne. Before I get a chance to make some really bad comeback to my nasaur, Jkonna's dark and square and warm face replaces the sky as hair tendrils casually droop upon me. I sneeze. She giggles. I sneeze again and she asks me to stop. But then I sneeze one more time, so I get a snap over the face. "Dino! Oh my gosh, my hair's bad enough as it is! Digadig, chill!"

"I can't chiiiiillllllll!" Okay. I'm practically crying. "Jkkiieeeeeeeeeeeee! I caaahaaaaaannnn't! It's! It's actual laaaaaaaand! Dina! Laaaaaaaand! Coming! Find! Save!"

She's shaking her head, but a stubborn smile won't quite smear off her lips. "I know, I know. Still, I have enough turd in my hair at this point. Snot wouldn't be a nice addition." But she's lost any hidden seriousness in the glance, her face rounding, softening, eyes bright with a fever. Droplet's got more than enough room on her, so my best friend goes on and flops right beside me. Her laugh is lighter than mine was. "Hoooo. You exhaust me, my friend." Quiet again. It's a good quiet.

Raptin doesn't lie down and laugh with us, but I wasn't expecting that much out of him.

As we wait, stuffed with anticipation, for our arrival, I ask Jkonna how she's feeling. "Eeeuh. I'm alright. Diga-Don't worry about me, alright? I'm alright. And... I'm purdy happy too, haha. It's good knowing that we're getting closer... also, like, land."

"Land," I murmur, head swaying.

"Yeah, land."

We probably could've gone on like that for a good hour or so more had our wonderful ride not abruptly stopped. With a groan, she announces, _Gaaaaaahh, oookay, we're in the freaking shallow end. Land approaching, blah blah. Everyone out! Dino, make some space for me and the others._ With that, her vivosaur medal—alongside Lone's and Harei's, who understandably want to avoid getting any more wet than the need be—plops into my hands as we go backfirst into the roiling ocean. Deep breaths, deep breaths, focus, float, swim.

Jkonna's hand snags mine. Raptin's not far behind us. We struggle with the torrents, but we keep moving. She's more alive than I've seen her since we started: kicking, pumping, red in the face.

I must say that reaching the shores felt like the greatest thing I had ever accomplished in my entire life. Surfacing, hiccuping slightly—well that last one's just me—standing on the edge of sands. Wet. Oh gosh, wet? Soaked through, hair streaming with tears of water. My black spines have watered down into straight and long strands, and it is not easy to see. My best friend's half guiding my slow motions. But then there were are, all the same: no more moving surfaces. Placement. Feeling. Things _other_ than the sky and the sea.

Somehow I get the feeling that I can breathe again. Something about it, this surface beneath my feet... I guess it's safe. Yeah. Safe is pretty nice.

From behind us summons the other dinaurian. His hair has also clumped into streams, and the misery on his face kind of hurts to look at. "Dino, Jkonna... please elaborate what it is exactly we must enact upon next?"

Blinks.

"Uhhhh." My best friend licks her lips. "Next... steps? Honestly I just wanna crash now, get clean... uuuugggh. Maybe some food. Yeah, but just maybe, diga. Just—Just maybe." Annoyed and tired, her hand tightens around mine.

I shrug in Raptin's direction. "Yeaaaaah. I think we should find some hospitable locals. That sounds pretty good. Hey, maybe if we tell them that we basically saved the world we'll get some people!"

She smirks. "I diga-dunnoo... they might not know who we aaare..."

"Bah," mutters Raptin, shaking his head. "Recovery. So recovery it shall be."

"Baaah your face," my best friend says. I think she's a little cross-eyed. "I'm tired. Oceans are horrible. I need a freaking nap before anything else."

So off we go, monsters from the sea, off in a possibly futile search. My stomach rumbles and Jkonna nearly punches me for it. Her bright blue eyes sparkle, and despite the hunger she's smiling.

 **There we go, Dino chapter number one, haha. So now you get an idea of who he and his friends are, what they're doing, and... I guess more insight on the fossil fighters world, haha.**

 **Oh quick pointers that might be important:  
I kinda see fossil fighters being more sturdy than people. They live longer than we do (like thousands of years), they can more or less "control" vivosaurs (though that term is very loose I mean look at Droplet and the others), and they can go days without nourishment or even needing to uh pee and stuff.**

 **Because they're a lot sturdier and different in general from people, their lifestyles are a lot more different. For one it's not all that weird to ride a semi-hateful krona all the way to the nearest island... which is days away. They'd be insane in comparison to "us" but it's just how they are. Also there's a lot less of them in a smaller world. Their areas of interest/purpose slightly differ too... well you'll see ^^**

 **But that's a bit of the run-down, haha.**

 **Also, Pippy! Who Pippy? Where Pippy? Will see?**

 **Anyways thank you! ^^**


	3. Do: Think Before You Stupid

**Me: And we return!**

 **Dino: hwah! Valiant return!**

 **Jkonna: So valiant you diga-don't even knowwww!**

 **Dino: soooooooo valiant**

 **Jkonna: I bet you diga-don't know what 'valiant' even means**

 **Dino: hahaahaaaaaaa**

 **Jkonna: wow Dino wow**

 **Raptin: -closes eyes and presses hand into forehead and just kinda stays like that-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 3: Think Before You Stupid

 _Dino_

My feet go all _splort splort_ between water and sand. A pasty mix casually brushes itself all over the scales underneath, and at first I flinched to that noise until I started to adjust. The feeling of immobile strength, a strength incomprehensible to a little weakling like me, is a comfort. No more seasick. No more bumbles and no more constant abyss of blue. Security. Yeah, I like security.

Man, I really didn't take into account how sticky sand is. Like, oh my gosh, it is crawling up my ankles. I feel uncomfortable. Itchy—ooh—yeah—that. Really bad. Also I smell sort of. Which I guess makes sense; I mean, I've been frequently drenched by seawater for however long now, and seawater isn't exactly the cleanest of waters. Although that being said, I'm not the only one: Jkonna stinks, Raptin stinks, I stink, grubby skin and shifty glares, disgusting. Like... freaking monsters. I-I mean, I don't think they'll get all suspicious or something, but—

I suddenly pitch over and very nearly sprawl all into the sand. The look of it lurches in my stomach; I laugh weakly.

 _Oh, dear. You won't require assistance, will you?_

Good old Iggy. _Good_ old Iggy. Rolling my eyes, I venture—weakly— _Y-Yeah, I'll figure it out. It's just weird. A good weird though._ Breathing experimental breaths, wincing as the air drafts in through my lungs, pumps out through my lips. A lingering soreness suggests I've been hurtling myself at walls for the past couple days. _A-A good weird, I-I promise, it's no big deal or anything._

The grunt of a distinguished little airhead. _You sound faint. I suppose it is to be expected, as you so downplay, but even so your irksome ire is just as insufferable as ever. Thou, I must add, thou hast such indolence. You must know, Dino, that if the moment ever approaches, Thomas and myself are very well capable of moving this 'immovable' ground of yours,_ he goes on, his voice all fluttery and overmuch.

It's funny to listen to. Iggy almost sounds like he's talking to himself. That too-rich tone, the too-thick throatiness, the way he tries to carry that bipedal load of fiery smugness. He's overpowering, like some really old and really cheap perfume.

 _But no_ , I say, swallowing, _no, I'll be fine. Just... gimme some time. But uh—um—thank you._

A roll of the eyes. _Yes, do not mention it. Thine power is merely a trickle to thine gaping sea._

 _Yeah, uh. Good for you?_ And I leave it at that, because my head hurts after talking to Iggy for awhile.

Rattling—Droplet's giggles—from inside of me. My eyes narrow as we trudge onward. Sticky particles glue themselves to my itching feet, and we plod on, and on, and on, and the sun is sinking now, leering toward the horizon, soon to be swallowed by the sea we finally finished crossing. Distant, I stop for a moment and stare back at it. My glassy reflection, the twinkling gray eyes, the sun-bleached smile, the sun-bleached face. A bit of a burn's wriggling its way around parts of my head, mostly my neck and cheeks. And, oh, just looking into those long-worn eyes adds tire on my back. All this weight is so freaking heavy... I can't wait until I shrug it all off and like sleep for a week.

It's funny, because I know I won't even get near that long. I know that for as much as I say, for as big as I talk, there's a chance that once we clear this island, we'll be off again soon. And we'll be... we'll be done here, and we'll be in the water again. Oh, I know Jkonna doesn't like the feeling of the oceans pressuring against her... now I feel bad... and tired, gosh, I feel tired...

Her fingers interlope from wherever they came from. I squeeze her hand, head sagging. She squeezes back. It helps with the yawn in my throat. Doesn't help with much else, but I struggle to raise my head, struggle to—connect eye contact—with those two people right over there on the shore too. My yelp comes out more a moan, and I lunge, pulling my best friend with me, her hair yanking in the wind, a wind tossing us cold from side to side to side again, and again we go on, and on, silently freaking out. Raptin pushes ahead from beside me, his old rose eyes glazed with an emotion trapped shimmering up in there.

"Di—hey, guhhhh! GUH! DINO! DIGA—WAIT! WAIT, DINO!

I pause. My grouchy stare must come off a tad hurtful, because Jkonna's icy eyes sharpen in turn. "Diga-Duuuude! At least let us come up with what to ask these guys! Like, what the heck are we supposed to say? Come on! Dino, we need to plan before we run in there and like... heh." She blows a stray hair out of her face, stray hand rubbing at an eye.

"Well, duh! We'll ask them where they think... where... where..." Oh. Aw, turd. "Jkonna, stop thinking ahead! Now I feel stupid... uggggh, what are we gonna doooooo?" Shaking and tossing my head back, I exhale as loudly as I can manage. "Like... like... where she is? Man, I'm an idiot. You can't ask random strangers where they think a random possible-stranger is... and how would they know, anyways? And if they don't know Dina, then we're just screwed." I mean, alright, maybe someone around this place is an explorer, but it's not like there's a ton of moving around out here. I mean, immediate proximity's a thing—Maia Island, also known as Orphanage Island since that's where the largest and most predominate orphanage, well, is, lies just by Vivosaur Island. Where we came from. And there's the island where the BB Bandits crashed for awhile, and there's that one Secret Island where an old dinaurian ship landed some million years ago.

But there's not exactly a whole lot of otherwise. It's far enough as it is. Who in their right mind spends six days on top of some poor water vivosaur just as miserable as Droplet to go find some place far out? And why would they do that? I must be the only loser out there who lost his sister as a kid—well, maybe not the only one, but _freaking close enough_.

Pausing, my best friend takes in something about me. Her lips curl; her eyebrows scrunch with the impression of hurt faint in them. "Hey... it's okay. We can ask them... where we are, right? That's something." She nods to herself, slowly, surely. I kind of copy her. "And, diga, we can ask them if they diga-do, by chance, know a Dina. If they diga-do, great. If not, well, we know we're not in the right place. And they should at least have some idea about... the nearby islands too, so... we'll figure this out. Alright, digadig?"

That hopeful little smile. It's worn too, like mine, after six days of relentless sun, but its message hasn't been altered all that much. A defiance, a red-hot Jkonna defiance that spits in the faces of idiots who Don't Get It, because she is a strong Jkkie and she will show them for messing with her. It's funny.

I already knew this wasn't gonna be easy. Memories, like the waves lapping on a shoreline, bring back hints and pieces of a time when I was just as much of a hardcore mess. Lowering, nodding, we stride on back for the people who noted our appearance and now waiting with an air of curiosity upon them. There's two of them, one a big margin taller than the other, though the taller one doesn't quite reach Raptin, but he manages to tower me. The shorter's gotta be... his son, I'm thinking? They share the dark hair, the sparkly—bright orange—eyes. Older's scrunched up his forehead, waiting, thinking, the younger one stepping nervously toward him as we get closer.

Matching vests, made up with a fine mesh. Those stupid tropical shirts underneath, the kind Doctor Diggins always freaking wears. Older has on some pants, the younger sporting a raggedy pair of shorts. They each carry a small net, the older one having a larger one with a handle at one end.

They carry a hint of feeling within them that I don't think I've seen in a lot of other people. Maybe it's difference in place, or maybe it's because I don't know a single thing about these guys and they don't know a single thing about us, but there's a feeling strung in the air, a strange kinda clueless warmth that I want to remember. Acceptance, maybe. Or honesty. Something starkly hopeful like that.

"Mmmmh," the older murmurs once we're in acceptable speaking distance. His worn, tanned hand pulls out toward us. "And what brings you to our neck of the woods, lassie and boys?" A calling, deep rumble. Makes me wonder if he sings often. He totally should. I think of sea chanteys, the funny old ones sung by shipwrecked sailors, and then I stop because it doesn't sound all that funny.

Weathered and flaky skin takes my hand—I nearly shock myself surprised by the heat within his. Practically collapses around mine, holy gosh. "I ahh! Hello! We're, ah, we're... we're!" Oh, no, Dino, pull your man pants on and get thinking. "We're here to! Aaaahh! Turd, gimme a moment!" Dang it, dummy. What are you? While I'm busy reflecting on my current state of idiocy, Jkonna pulls in and saves the day.

She takes the guy's hand and shakes it too. Big winning smile. Creepy flashing blue eyes. Yeah, she's annoyed. "The name's Jkonna! The big diga-dummy over there's Dino, and that guy with the scales is Raptin." Older dude nods, satisfied. I think he has a faint idea on what a digadig is, or their tribe or whatever, which is always good. "We're searching for diga-dummy Dino's sister. Her name is, oh man, surprise, Dina. And she has... uhhh, Dino, what's she look like again?"

Sucking in a breath, I pull in, pushing past my best friend. I try to muster any sort of courage. "So uh... Dina's..." The memory's a little faint, but... but still... "Orangey hair, it's probably long... uh, I think. She has... scales—like me, but they're white and gray mostly... and uh, I think she's the nicest little thing out there and she's probably scared right now, so... uh..."

"Prob'ly? Ya think?" Oh. Oh... I swallow, nodding weakly.

Dang. I... I wish I had more.

I feel... empty.

C-Come on... tell the nice man with the freaky bright eyes what's going on in your life. Nothing too much, don't cut out your guts over him but... but... Come on. Come on, Dino, you can do this... "Y-Yeah. I'm sorry, that's not as helpful as I'd like it to be, but I haven't seen my sister in a long time... s-so for all I know, she's... a lot different than I remember. But I... I need to find her. She's going through a lot right now, and I... I think she needs the help. Plus I... I miss her."

Don't cry, don't—dang it, Dino. Do _not_. Throwing off my emotions with what has to be the saddest laugh to ever be laughed, I shrug off the heart that casually stuffed itself into my throat for annoyingly unknown reasons. Swallowing, I find it won't budge.

When the guy's thinking over everything I just blurted and it's starting to get obvious that I'm stuck, a certain amazing and reliable Raptin shoulders his way through. He watches the people curiously. There's a strange softness in his eyes that touches the child, and man, it's really throwing me off. I kind of stare at Raptin, but then Raptin doesn't stare at me, so I'm awkwardly staring and being completely ignored and my stomach starts to sour as my sad, weak laugh returns.

Eventually, the older man returns to us. In his rasp, he murmurs, "Yes... Why, I can wrap my mind round such a tale. You youngsters..." Shaking his head fondly. "You youngsters and your journeys, huh? You and your crazy. Well... I may as well introduce myself before we go on any further. The name's Pat, and this here's"—affectionately patting his son's head—"Zan.

"But," he goes on, dark lips pressing together, "'fraid I haven't heard of no orangey round here. No Dina. Certainly no scalies like the likes'f you. Say... where'chu come from? Ohhh... wuzzit called—Vivosaur Island? Are you folks from round yonder? Rumor's had it that's where all you scalies showed up outta..." he trails, watching us with this intensity.

Jkonna mutters something about Zan rhyming with "ran" under her breath. Her voice cracks. Oh, nerves. One of her vivosaurs fidgets with the anticipation of such a word; another scolds the both of them. Raptin is still watching the family back. His tail stutters between him like it wants to duck between his legs, like that'll do anything.

Ah, dang it.

"Yeaaaaaah. We're from Vivosaur Island, Pat. My—uh—My sister's not... we don't know where she is, but yeah, that's where the whole dinoran"—Droplet elbows me with her mind and I realize I am an idiot—"I-I mean dinaurian—s-sorry, where all the dinaurians came from... from space! Would you believe it if we told you that actually, dinaurians are what humans and nomadistinians and all of us stemmed from, basically? Innit weird?"

Let's just say that when I first heard the term "dinaurian", I heard it the wrong way. H-Haha, old habits...

Pat's shaking his head, a shrewd grin screwing up his dark lips. "Hunh. Well I guess whatever works. Interesting... surely."

He only stands a good inch or so taller than me, but something about him comes off in waves, his authority so clear and pronounced that I feel... muted. It's not a bad feeling—the look in his bright-hot eyes suggests layers of wisdom—but it's a weird little feeling, hot and itchy in my chest. Maybe that's why my friends got so quiet... I wouldn't blame them. Jkonna's head slowly moving, back and forth, back and forth, expression turned from the men. Raptin's dull stare.

The sun continues its slink for the horizon. It's like it's waiting for us to eat up more time so we're stumbling around half-asleep in the dark. Pat's hair, short and cropped, bristles slightly in a shift of wind, and his hands clamp onto his handle.

"Oh, ah! Um... I-I was... wondering..." Ah. I guess I'm... faring better than my friends, but this is still kinda sad. "Pat, uh, Zan, uh... what's... what's the name of this island? And I... guess we were wondering, um... uhhh, what's around here? Are there any close islands? Anywhere for us to—us to look for my sister?" My eyes, shining, or maybe it's the way I hold my face: something gives me away.

I must be as subtle as a freaking futabi.

 _Hurrrrmnnng? Dino, what did you—_

Jkonna's arm, draped against mine, violently jolts back.

Yeah, futabi. Jkonna's vivosaurs must be waking up now that she'd been dumped into this ice-water sea of cold shock. Lolling around and navigating freely while desperately hoping for a way out of that ocean takes a lot out of a person, not to mention that Foster is already incredibly lazy, as are most of Jkonna's vivosaurs. Well anyways they're all practically as drained as her but I guess now is not the time to think about big-necked futabis with their hulking fins all over the place.

Pat's loitering gaze snaps back to attention after I cough softly and focus back in on him. Zan's ruffled hair gets a little messier as he thoughtfully continues rubbing his hand on his poor son's head. I don't think he minds all that much, little pale Zan, but his eyes keep wandering toward me like if he looks away for too long I'll eat him. Big scary Di—oh... ohh, weirdo "scalies" probably aren't something the poor kid's seen much of.

"Yesiree, boy. This here's Port, an'... well, it ain't all that hard to tell what we do here." Turning back, he calls out to the open seas, "Fierro! Ooooooooyyyyyyyyyyy!"

Jkonna splinters off again. She scoots closer to me. Takes me a moment to realize how freakishly similar she's acting to little Zan. I'm suddenly tempted to ruffle her hair too. Raptin doesn't really move, but there's an intake of breath and a sharp start in his body.

The waves rumble with a pressure beneath them, and a head slowly combs itself through the salty, sinewy waters. Bits of leaves and clumpy stuff cover his purple fins, and bleak, glassy eyes the color of those glowy mushrooms peer toward me lazily. The elasmo shivers, long neck arcing with sweat droplets, and its lips curl as it nears us. I eventually decide this is more a masculine presence, so casually the elasmo becomes a fierce-looking he in my head, and man, he is _fierce_. As well, there's what may or may not be a saddle draped about his sloping finned figure, one now soaking with seawater. Fierro, then?

A thickset stench of salty bacteria trembles in the air between us. I end up locked in this staring contest with this freaky, oversized Foster. My head tilts; his head tilts; I try to blink; he tries to blink; I sneeze; his head shifts and a loud _bang_ of a sound erupts out of some terrifying place inside of him.

Pat casually slaps his free hand on the elasmo's neck, gently patting at the creature. "Port's big on the ocean. Heh... no wonder—we _do_ live on low land. Aquatics, seafood, art... mmh, it's a big thing here."

Wow. Back on Vivosaur Island, there was much more discovery and... science, and stuff. Maybe that was all because Diggins lives there and Diggins has a gigantic thing for science, but even so, the power of his technology junk was a little staggering. Plus, the vast majority of our land was high up. Then there's old Port, or whatever, over here, all galumphing around with its artwork and seafood and junk.

He relays a small number of nearby islands off the top of his tongue. Vivosaur's the farthest-out he knows; then further on there's Melon, Banana, and after that a fun little place called Stalactite. Apparently it's furthest leftward and northward, and it's full of ice and caves. Oh, gosh.

But Port is a nice little place. Yes, very nice. Though I guess we'll be leaving soon, since no Dina. That's alright... Though it does make me wonder where the heck my sister is... what the heck kinda junk she's gotten herself into. Possessed, something in my head reminds me, possessed, she's possessed. So I swallow, shake my head, and I return to the old fisherman and his son.

"Um... that sounds pretty cool, heheh... I mean—really, it does... I-I like it..." Oh, gosh, I sound like a child. "I like what you do a-and stuff. And your elasmo's pretty cool too... um, thank you." Th-That's what it is. "Thank you for... helping us. Even if you didn't know where she is. That's okay. We'll figure it out from here. So um... thank you." And now I can't hold eye contact.

Jkonna kinda sags into me. My gaze falls into her, her head against my shoulder, her eyes heavily lidded. Face shadowed by its hanging posture. Fingers halfheartedly curled. She mumbles some weak echo of thanks, followed by Raptin's much more mannerly stride. And then, with that, we move on. Past the man and his son, past the elasmo, past the sandy shores that coat our sore and tired and overused feet.

"Um, Dad..." The child's little voice, scraping from his throat. My face heats. "Dad... they were a whole bunch of... of weirdos..!"

Soft, trickling laughter. "Yesiree, now weren't they?" Quiet again. "But they prolly thought we were weirdos too, uh?"

"Really..?"

"Yeah. That's the fun about it."

Oh geez... The words wash over me, my face hot, the thoughts heavy in my head, and I move faster from sand to soil to stone and I move faster, head ducked beneath the sky, one hand in mine and another with my other, tightly squeezed to my tight grip. A puff of feelings into the cooling air, tousling my hair, tracing a light to my eyes, to the scales all upon me. My heart's running away from my chest and all of a sudden I realize that I'm way ahead of myself and it's hard to breathe and I sag.

Closing my eyes, I just breathe. We all stop, because I stop, and I just breathe.

I think I feel myself smiling, beneath all of it. Wow. That must look really weird. Eyes closed, head bowed, and this almost imperceptible smile casually crawling into me, breathing out. And that must look really funny—and I imagine it like a fat vivosaur's tail plastered onto the spot where my lips go—and then I'm chuckling silently, shoulders shaking, to myself, and it comes back to me, just how weird this is. Funny... isn't it?

Moving again breaks some sort of spell; the others follow, Raptin sloping into the lead again. His tail flashes with its turquoise and violet streaks, and I watch with this strange, mesmerized face as it flickers in front of me. Jkonna's nails cut into my arm, and she giggles quietly.

Another flash of Foster's finned face. Orange hues, his thick and pronounced neck, his foggy—either uncaring or careless—eyes, a strange waft of peace coming off of Foster's inland. _Dino, stop being such a weirdo, man. It's unappetizing. Uhngh._ Half yawn.

 _Aaaaahahaaaaaaa, unappetizing, now I'll never be eaten,_ I mumble. I'm trying about as hard as he is, honestly.

And then Morie. _Foster! That was rude! Apologize, would you? And Dino! Keep on smiling! Did you know that every so thousand frowns creases one wrinkle into your skin? Think about that! One wrinkle! And it's so easy to frown! You could look so old by your mid-fifties!_ The ultimate doting mother, complete with a stern and very slightly shrill voice. This little m-raptor is not one to be messed with.

Of course, Bomba is another story. She goes all, _Whuhhhhh? Morieeee, are you sure that's true..? What if it's naawwwt? Like, you all think I can breathe fire but that's totally not me..._

 _Being a u-raptor makes this rather hard to believe._ Ah, Nodopi. She's more regal than doting. She kind of has issues. Probably the scariest out of Jkonna's vivosaurs. She and her big hot maia... grace. Of sorts.

 _Dang._ And finally... Bliss. _Okay, why are we talking about this again? Morie, why are you being all annoying again? Well I guess it's not your fault you were born that way._ She pauses, but there's only so much reaction she can get with a burn when her audience consists of a half-asleep futabi, only the most condescending of maias, Morie herself, and Morie's girlfriend herself. _Ahh,whatever. You guys are no fun anyways._ The acro's sharp hazel eyes lengthen, her earthy body puffed out with Bliss pride.

Bomba scratches at her red scales. _Uhhh... I can be fun. You're just... boring. But I think I can be pretty fun. Like, sooooo fun. Soooo super fun._ She goes on like this for a little longer while Morie mumbles something to her about how they get it.

And then with the air of a crack of the whip, Jkonna sputters out a sentence of control and manages to harness her vivosaurs. _Guys! Would you chill! Yes—all of you?! Myyyyy goodness! I am diga-drained, and you are friggin weirdos! Dino reaaallly diga-doesn't need to hear about all your problems!_

Pause. _Yeah, but I'm not tired_ , mumbles Bomba. Jkonna's eyes narrow as she releases a puff of breath. Doesn't comment on it, probably because Bomba, but she glimpses me and rolls her eyes a few times.

Bumping her elbow, I go, "Ohhhh, yeah! Man, I'm not tired either! We should, like, stay up all night and do stupid things! Completely ruin our sleep schedules, because I am not tired! It's not as if we've got some crazy important things to do at all, and Bomba, you're right, you _don't_ breathe fire, and _never_ in your life have you _ever_ done so, and I don't know why I'm saying this because we all know you have! Wow. Well then. Sleep. Food. Bathing would be nice, though I guess we'll just end up swimming again soon so maybe it's not too important."

And then Raptin pauses. I bumble into him. He stutters, pushing me back, his misty eyes gleaming. Figure pressured into posture, he holds up a hand and murmurs, pointing, "Look."

So we do, into the cold and stony gaze of a... of a cold and stony... sculpture. Swallowing, I step back, boring forward, and man... I haven't paid any attention to my surroundings at all, have I? But there it is, hitting me, that great concentrated power of picture all into one single hunk of stone. Sure, once it was white and pristine, but this is old stone, old and weathered and chipping stone, and those cold and stony eyes must contain an insane amount of memories.

I pull up by Raptin while he's not looking.

"Dude." Elbow him. "Just like your mom, eyyyy?"

When the words sink in, his head jolts in my direction and he's giving me the most disgruntled look I've gotten out of him so far. It's so ridiculous that I cap a hand over my mouth but my laugh comes out so obese and squeaky that he hears it anyways, and, hearing it, his eyes narrow further until they're literal moon slits of gold, tiny black pupils carving them into some sorta crescent.

Sputtering, he manages to regain his composition. One sweep of a hand over his cheek and he mutters, "Disgraceful child. Goodness, Dino: you do recall the appearance of my mother, do you not? I am afraid there is hardly a resemblance betwixt a sublime, moving figure and this cold heart of stone."

"Alright," I return, "you be that way." The eyes try to narrow even more but then end up closing. Raptin grunts. His face morphs into what resembles mid-sneeze formation.

Jkonna mimics him, going "Kerchoo" casually. The vein above Raptin's left eye inflates.

I decide to leave him alone now, turning back to the stature of the statue in question. Its long, fanned hair, opalescent eyes reached to the horizon with her palm-out hands, a long and wavering dress that pulls off of her figure and channels down, down into the earth, elongating the lady. I dunno, though. Besides the fact that she was dinaurian and her hair was a lot shorter, she kinda resembles Raptin's mom.

So I poke him again. "Imagine if your mom was human, like—like Jkonna or Rosie or even freaking Pat the fisherpat with his elasmo." Grunt. "And her hair was long." Grunt—release. Raptin's face tightens a bit at the recognition, shoving me off and moving forward. His excuse, tossed over his shoulder, says, "We are wasting valuable time; let us go," but it wasn't even that much time, Raptin, like, chill.

Finally the stone levels out to more even stone, worn-down stone, walked-on-for-ages stone. The grooves of other feet, bigger and smaller than mine, catch up underneath, and I get this crazy thought of all the people, alive and dead, who've walked on this road before me. I need to stop for a moment there; Jkonna stumbles over me, hand tight on mine. She tosses her head back with a bemused glare and pulls me a little more. "Diga-Duuuuuuude! C'monnn, Raptin's already nervous."

Right on cue, a certain Rapty's head turns. His old rose eyes burn to glimpse into, his bluish and violet scales shimmery hot, face taut and tight and pulled at like clay. Oh, poor Raptin. I guess it's only understandable that he's nervous, after everything, but all the same I feel a twinge in my gut, seeing that disheveled expression of his.

Houses begin to pass by. A few come out from brick, but most hold themselves together via canvas, sticks, mud. It's strange, I note, how... _different_ this place is when compared to the likes of Vivosaur Island. My mind goes to Diggins, our personal scatterbrained scientist, all of the geometric buildings—the Hotel, the Fossil Center, the Fossil Stadium, the Police Station and Richmond Building, as well as whatever attractions are going on in the dig sites—and then this, in stark contrast. They have vivosaurs too, though... huh. I guess there's lots of ways to get to them. Maybe some of them come from the vivosaurs that didn't die millions of years ago, instead passing down their genes, generation to generation, and so they're still around and uppity today.

Oh. Maia Island—where I came from, just a few short hours by boat to Vivosaur... that was different too, huh? Maia's main house—the orphanage—had its big wooden structure, large and imposing and safe at the same time. We had sort of improvised roads and a garden and a lake and some vivosaurs too, but I think Nosh—our director lady—got those from Vivosaur Island.

A great fire wick thing sits—just sits—in the midst of the houses. Most follow clockwise, a circular barrier, though there are the exceptions. The muddied homes, most reinforced with canvas, most painted on. Oh wow, we practically fit in, all our days of destruction in the water. Watching these people, some in vests, most donning feathered tunics, really messes with me. At some point I mistake one of them for Diggins's lab coat and then my head really starts to throb. Oh, gosh: _people_.

The bemused look hasn't quite left my best friend's face. An intensity flickers in her big, icy eyes, the light melting the chill and filling her with a strange... wonder—like two glassy snow globes. Her nails dig into my skin, and she mumbles, hushed, "Dino... it's culture." Culture? I must be an idiot because I can't quite tell what she's trying to get at, but then her face turns toward me and she whispers, shivering, "Culture. They're diga-different than what we grew up in... a-and that's really cool."

I mouth the word. Oh, culture, yeah, culture, cultury culture, fun times. Differences... similarities... I watch these people, my forehead bunching. Of course, because he is the most cheerful and optimistic person in the entire world, Raptin bumps my shoulder and mutters, "This place reeks," and his nose bunches after that.

Because Raptin, I ignore him.

Harei happens to find this a fantastic time to pop out of her medal—probably nerves. Her big golden figure arcs toward the sky, reverting to her regular height instead of the shrunken version. Cutting blue eyes scan the horizon, and maybe she can tell how dark and brooding they are, because her face heats from it. Oh, my poor ourano. Look at her, the faint sail on her back shivering with pressure, her mouth curled into a grimace, her tiny hands reaching together in front of her body. Tail attempting to lower between her—

 _Harei. Oh my gosh—Harei! It's all good, okay? It is aaaaaaalllll good! You can chill now, okay? You can actually chill now._ Of course this all goes right over her head but I tried, didn't I? A-And we'll see about not giving up; Harei can be weirdly stubborn.

She pauses. Her hips wiggle. She has some... supple hips, I dunno, that one hip-shaker dance back on Vivosaur Island is her specialty, though she'd never admit to that. It's kind of embarrassing. _N-Nnngh! Di-Dino, I don't know about thaaaahaat... I-I'm not... it's not... Th-There're a lot of vivosaurs out here!_

I smirk. _Yes, Harei, there_ are _a lot of vivosaurs here_. That's not helping. Uh.

 _Yes, but... But, Dino! S-So many! S-Sooooo violent-looking a-and scary! And muscles! S-S-So many muscles!_

My head drops. _Harei. You have so many muscles too._

 _Yes, but... but..._ scars _. They—They have big, ugly, scary scars too! They must fight a-a lot! They must be very, very powerful and—and terrifying! And if we try to ask them for help they... they'll hurt us! Re-Really badly! And that won't be good because getting hurt is... is bad! Aa-Aahhh... Di-Dino, it's scary here! I-I wanna go back hooooome... wh-where's Pippyyyyyyyyy?_

Droplet comes out next. She is tired and not happy to be here, but she is also not happy about the way our ourano is acting. _Harei, stop that! We'll find him! We'll go home! Oh—Dina, right, whatever, ugh. Save and go! It'll be fine; stop freaking out, would you? It's annoying and loud and everyone's probably staring at us! Uugghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!_

 _Bb-Bbbhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... D-Droplet... nnngggggghh..._ Wow. Holy—wow, we both suck at this. Like, really badly.

 _Harei_ , I mumble, but that works even worse than Droplet's rant because she doesn't even hear it, though I guess spouting her name wouldn't do all that much anyways. And now, because we've started a scene, a certain purple feathery thing has to show up too, now doesn't she? And Bliss, oh that acro, she finds all of them hilarious and summons herself too. I ask—trying to inflate my sarcasm as heavy as it goes—and thank goodness, Thomas and Iggy have no reason to find leaving their medals and terrorizing the locals with their loud voices a good idea. So it's just everyone else.

And you know what? One of the vivosaurs finds them so terrorizing that, with a _squaaaaa_ , he lurches off from the person in front of him and into battle, sticking his claws through Droplet's lip. My krona understandably hates this and with a growl launches the furry reddish creature off of her. A whorl of water spews out from her body, the majority falling in hurried lashes against the andrarch, who, wincing, tries at her again.

I let out a breath and pick up my head. If only Pippy was here. He hated initiating battle and would've freaked out and accidentally squashed the andrarch with a gigantic Pippy foot by now. _Lone, try to latch onto him. Droplet, stay back—don't wanna hurt him too much. And... Harei. Let's, uh, not hyperventilate, okay?_ She keeps hyperventilating. Turd, oh turd. _Droplet's on Harei duty! Keep her from hyperventilating that badly, would you?_

She grumbles something about how should she know how to do that, but my big watery krona at least attempts to swallow back her pride and coax Harei out of her blushing, huffing state. Smaller than the krona, she only shrinks in composure. Bliss, beside her, glances out and watches before her eyes as another vivosaur springs into battle for who knows why and her spiny yellow body hustles into position, swinging an arm, smacking the red—this scaled—face into a form of submission.

Jkonna winces. Her eyes flutter into thoughts. "Uhh?" I squeak.

"I ah..." She's pointing at the vivosaur. Big fan on—her—back, big yellow eyes, red scales, flaming red scales.

"Oh? Hey... I don't think I've seen that vivosaur before. Heck. What's that one called, Jkkie? D'you know?" Raptin, curious, shuffles toward me, but otherwise he doesn't make much of a response. Though now his eyes are narrowing, I guess about the whole accidental invasion of random vivosaurs slapping mine.

Jkonna's eyes sputter. She shakes her head, flaming hair shivering all about her. "I've... yeah, I-I've seen that vivosaur before. Trying to jog my memoryyy... uhh... diga-dimetro, was it? Yeah, I think that's a... a diga...dimetro. Nnh. Seen it somewhere before... but where... ughh..."

Something about the struggle in her gaze holds me taut. I can't think for a moment, just see those eyes, those shimmering, watery, icy blue eyes, her face pinched together in a concentration that's not pulling together as well as she'd like.

A final vivosaur springs into combat, and, darn it, I don't recognize this one either. Tiny with these fanned blue wings, a weird crest on its blue head. Sorta sea-blue, a little darker than Raptin's coloring. The thing jabs at Droplet, who winces and stutters back, not really focusing, and then a couple more stabs send my poor krona reeling back into her—medal. Oh. Turd. And then it goes right for Harei whose heavy breathing grows significantly heavier.

"Jkkie, d'you know what that little jerk is?" My annoyance kinda blinds me about its next target, which turns out isn't Harei, bless... his tiny soul. But anyways, what is that thing? Reminds me of an aopteryx, sort of, but it's obviously not at the same time...

She's shaking her head again, dark skin flushed. "Nnnnh... it was, it was... nycto—no, no that's something else... thalasso, I think? Y-Yeah, diga... yeah... ugh, but nycto, that's something, that's another one... I think it knew the diga-dimetro or something..."

Wincing, I give her a berth and go back to the battle. Harei's hyperventilation eventually does her in, so I go up and collect my krona's medal while I'm at it. Shiny aqua, shiny beige. After soon follows a dented blue—Lone—and I decide not to ask her what she's done to herself. It sounds a little risky. Anyways, because Jkonna's obviously not focusing either, Bliss returns soon too—with a gallant screech—and then it's back to the three of us again.

The man—man, another man—calls back his vivosaurs, but not into their medals, so I'm guessing they don't have any and I'm kinda relieved I wasn't focusing enough to do all that much damage. The poor andrarch is still soaking with his tail between his legs, and the thalasso took a nick that I'm thinking came from a certain insane nasaur, and the dimetro hasn't really sustained anything but a couple slaps to the face.

Blonde hair, dark eyes. A... not red, but a more maroon tunic. He's starting to resemble someone in the back of my head, but I can't completely put a name to this face just yet... Stepping toward us, in a deep and booming voice, he quickly apologizes for his vivosaurs swooping on into ours's argument, so we're all like yeah whatever.

"Are you... hrrmm, those medals—was it Vivosaur Island who sponsored those? Oh! Oh, that reminds me... My nephew—you may know him—he lives there. You know him?" We kinda pause. "Oh, right, I didn't say who it was..." The older man blinks, nodding to himself. "Nickolas. Though at some point his nickname became Nick Nack, for a number of reasons... Would you happen to know a Nick Nack, then?"

...oh my gosh that's right.

Our old eccentric, Nick Nack... he's actually not so bad if you get past the kind of eccentric thing, funny guy. Anyways, didn't he and his newlywed like... I think they mentioned thinking about having their honeymoon somewhere... well, I guess Nick Nack decided to show her his family. Man, _her_ family though... Jkonna and I met them, almost all goth redheads, kinda creepy. So this is where Bea Ginner and Nick Nack—Nickolas?—went after the wedding... huh.

Apparently I'm missing something. Jkonna shoves me aside and yells, "Yeah! YEAH! YEAH, WE KNOW THEM, GOOD FRIENDS, DIGADIG, I MEAN—GREAT FRIENDS, WHERE ARE THEY? CAN WE GO SAY, UH, HI TO THEM?"

Oh right. Baths, sleeping arrangements, food.

Nick Nack's uncle gives us a big shrug and we follow him toward the edge of the adobes. Our feet dip from stones to marshy soil, and every time a foot goes _squelch_ into the mud poor Raptin flinches, biting on his lip or tongue or something almost constantly. But by the end of the cute little huts, there's a larger one nearing the ends of a cave, and judging by the smell and great waft of heat... hey, a hot spring? Holy heck, if there's anything we freaking need.

This hut's got a little more stone than the others, a little less mud, some nice mats sown in with wood planks, adding a much more... secure feeling. By the front stands a redhead I never thought I'd ever see in a tunic, let alone any color not like her big black cloak, and just behind her, from the front of the area, summons freaking Nickolas himself—er, Nick Nack. Honestly I had no idea that was a nickname, though it makes a lot more sense than... I mean, Nick Nack.

Bea Ginner—or whatever her last name is now—turns and spies us. Her eyes widen; her face heats. Her lips press together and she stomps toward us, past the uncle dude, and cries, "What in the name of—What are you doing here? Dino! J-Jkonna! And... Raptin as well? Why are... what? What!"

Oh... they must've left shortly after the wedding... so they didn't hear about our plans like Rosie and everyone else. Anyways, Bea.

Nick Nack curiously moseys in after, and his reaction is similar. "Aha! Dino and company! I must say, quite the gander!"

While tall, our porcelain-colored redhead friend stands just under me. Nick Nack's a little taller, so he's got... maybe an inch on me, but Raptin's tallest even so. Man, Raptin is one-upping everyone today.

We all take a moment to kind of gawk. Jkonna's clenching my arm tightly, her head still down, trying to process either this or whatever it was with that dimetro before. And I mean, Raptin hardly knows these two and these two hardly know Raptin so... well, me again. Okay then. I take in a breath. "Soooooo, Bea, Nick Nack, nice t'see you again, yeah? Been awhile. We uh... we completely spaced on the fact you were coming here for your honeymoon?" Just... Just if they were wondering. "I'm... oh, come on, you remember the whole thing about the dinaurian princess or whatever—y'know, my sister—still being missing and all that, right? Well... well, uh..."

Maybe it's the thought of her. Maybe it's a realization for how different I must look, with the scrubby face and the dried hair. Maybe my voice hurts after all this initiative-taking—and I'm certainly not all that used to it with Jkonna around, that greedy girl. But she's gone so quiet now. Her glassy, glazed eyes, stained such a blue as to suggest how close to tears o-or something she is. The tilted head. The pressed lips. Dude... I just... Maybe it reminds me of Dina, too. Worried. Worried what's going on with her and what that'll be like when we get there.

"A-Ah." Bea gets the idea. Her newlywed doesn't so she elbows him and mutters, "He's trying to find his sister, dummy." Then Nick Nack gets it. He's nodding softy, mouth formed into a little _oh_.

"Well, son of Dynal!" He regains his spunk without a beat. "You must be worn after your journey here, ah? Last I recalled, you had no flying vivosaurs! None other than that good old krona to churn her way on over! So I must ask, of course, to my young fellow friends, if you would like to rest and take the bonding of the bread with us after?"

Bea smirks. "You know what he means."

"Yeah." I nod. "Yeah, probably. Close enough." Nick Nack's got a bit of a pout on his face, but I think he's messing with us.

And oh, thank goodness, so it goes: I deposit my bent medals, sweaty with the moistness of my hands, onto the table in their nice hut and we take bathing shifts in their miraculous hot spring outside. Man, for the first time in what feels like forever, I scrub back my new layers of grime and plow through the fun little bits of I-don't-even-know in my hair and I actually see a shine in my scales by the end of it. Raptin's second, and Jkonna goes last, so while we wait, all draped in warm towels, we eat their fruit. And some of their vegetables but mostly their fruit because like fruit, you know? It's fruit.

And of course, I'm halfway through a banana when a rather unsettling sound emerges from the outside.

 _BMMPH_.

Spitting at yellow mush, I try to warn someone that I think she just hit her head in the bath, but oh thank goodness our wonderful redheaded Bea darts off to try and handle it as much as she can. That leaves Nick Nack and Raptin and me, and my vivosaurs in their bent-but-mending medals chilling on the table. Nick Nack's are out somewhere. That's a weird habit about old Port: casual vivosaurs.

Muted voices from behind, wrapping around the snug little den. I wonder if my best friend's okay—she... she wouldn't let a bump stop her, I know, but I can't help it. She's a fiery thing, isn't she? Yeah... A few words stand out from their conversation, like "idea" and "diga-didn't mean to" and "help". But not an I'm-dying help, more a this-would-be-assistance help.

It's quiet for a little while on the inside. I think it's the quietness that coaxes our host into speaking. "Yeah... So now you know, laddies. This's where old Nickolas came from. Weird, euh? Though I guess it... kinda makes sense. Is it... weird? It might be a little weird. Heh..." His voice has softened. A reluctant, creeping gentleness, he must be nervous to let it out to most people.

Maybe he's a little self-conscious about how open he is, about how open everyone else isn't. Aw...

"Hey! No, it's cool! Dang... what was Jkonna calling it... Really fancy-sounding, overpowering word, uhhhh..." I take a moment to get my bearings. "Oh, oh! Culture. Yeah... whatever it is, shaping people somehow. I think this little place is kinda cool. It's different but... I mean, who's to say what a difference different makes?"

Raptin obviously has some rather strong opinions about Port so I shove his chair over and force him to worry about that instead of whatever it is he'd like to add to the conversation. Freaking Raptin.

The honeyed hazel eyes across the table glide over me. They watch Raptin's awkward fidgeting for a moment before a mirthful wink in the eye and another darting glance away. "Yes. I suppose that is true. You know of the doglish ones in Nomadistan, yes? They are not very similar to the other islands either... furry mammals, a large castle... though as I've heard from other places, the Caliosteo—now they're kinda similar to us... mmmh. But it's funny. Yes? Funny..."

"Heh." I nod to that. "It is..." Man, people are plain weird. I give Raptin another good shove, just to be safe.

"Bea's family was funny, too..."

I snort. "Oh my gosh, Bea's family." We met them once. They're all really freaky, into goths and dark clothes, probably into occults or something of the sort. Bea... well, as far as I know, she isn't, though she has her own differences. But I never found her all that hard to get along with or anything. She's the gal who taught me how to dig up fossils back on Vivosaur Island... she must have a lot of patience. Psh, oh my gosh, she must...

What a strange thing to bond over.

By this point, Raptin's gone quiet and every time my hand darts toward him— _just_ to be safe—his own much more calculated accuracy slaps me back before I get the chance. I end up giving in, cradling my stinging arm to my chest and sticking my tongue out at him. His face reddens, cheeks moving toward a mulberry. "What a child," he mutters, all tact and precision, but unfortunately for him I don't react.

It's a little later that finally my poor best friend stumbles into the scene. Her long cords of hair lay flat and sticky about her body, clinging to her dark skin and the contrasting white towel. Her body's sort of pulled into itself, like a frail little bird. But her eyes, big blue eyes, take into me seriously, and once she drapes into the room she starts over toward me and grabs me from behind, the back of the chair the lone barrier, whispering, "Dino... The diga-dimetro—and the Caliosteo... and... and the... it's... it's all..."

She slumps into my head, breathing tightly.

"I might, um... I might know where we have to go."

I start. "WHAT?"

Our heads crack together a moment too soon and I bite my lip—and my tongue—and my forehead goes into my hands and I mumble sorry and I look up and take her shoulders and I try again. "Jkonna... are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Di-Dino." Her face pinks. "O-Of course! I-I wouldn't lie about something like this... I ah... I just remembered something. I-It was a kind of ugly memory, so I haven't, um, diga... thought about it much, so I... forgot. When you were going through things. It wasn't... very important at the time but... I-I've seen Di-Dina before. Once. No—twice. And... she had a diga-dimetro, I remember that now... that's why I, um, know what a diga-dimetro is, diga, s-since they aren't on Vivosaur...

"Caliosteo. What you guys mentioned. I was over there... you remember Pauleen... she was over there, I saw her, I met Dina—diga-don't freak out but I think her hand was broken, uh... i-it was a few months ago, before we knew about diga-dinaurians and stuff, but she was... she was there. Y-Yes. So we need to... we need to go over there."

Nick Nack starts right up next. "Ohhhhhh! Oh, oh oh oh! Old Doug Diggins and I shared that friend Joe Wildeas—er, Wildwest, who lives back in that area... yeah, he mentioned someone with that sort of name. Dino or someth—er, Dina, right. Right..."

The feelings hit me where it hurts. I suck in a breath but I find myself groping for the impossible, and then I need to sit down, but I miss the chair so I sort of slam into the mat below. Shaking, breathing, breathing, shaking, trying to convince myself that it's actually here now. That was one of my problems, back when I was going through... depression. I was hit by so many different feelings—I had a dad—and a dead mom, and a dead society; I was a prince—and I didn't quite fit the role, immature little me; I thought I'd found love for not one but two different girls—and then one of them... I lost them.

It wasn't... exactly easy.

I swallow. Come on, Dino. You can do this. You can do this.

Droplet's voice returns from her half-asleep medal: _Mnmnnnnmm cheerin' for you..._

Somehow a really stupid smile slaps onto my face. I need a moment to breathe, and then it's a little easier, when I just focus on that. Energy builds up into my veins, into my heart, all up in my over-thinking head, and I pick myself back up and I crush my best friend into a hug and I try not to freak out, although I think I already have.

With the blessings of Bea and Nick Nack, we leave after sleeping on some borrowed cots and a little more food in our stomachs once dawn approaches. The light in the sky sets fire to the air and it gets into me somewhere, nervous but ready but really nervous me, but oh... oh goodness, thank goodness for people. Nick Nack told us about his Joe friend on the whole Caliosteo place, and Jkonna warned that we still had a long ways to go, but oh my gosh, we stood a chance. A-A freaking chance. And that's way more than enough for me...

Once we start out, Raptin gently places a hand on my shoulder. When I glance over to him, those old rose eyes of his would turn away, but he wouldn't move, either.

It's all coming together. What a weird feeling.

 **Yay! What a weird feeling indeed, yeah? Poor Dino's all like ermagershhhh ahhhhh the entire time, hahaha. But I mean, it his sissy! If it was your sissy you'd be a little freaked out too, right? Haha... It must be hard, going through all that. But kinda cool too...**

 **For any of those who weren't there/don't remember, The Lost Fossil Fighter featured a time frame of around five or six chapters (when MC first sees dinaurian Duna to when Duna and Raptin steal the sub-idolcomps and ray a bunch of people) where Jkonna casually wasn't there. It's mentioned once or twice, and when she returns she refuses to say why (until she gets feelsy in The Stone Fossil Fighter) but she talks digadig and everything afterward.**

 **In this time frame, in The Alone Champion, when Pauleen's mask starts acting up and she gets possessed by it to when Dina and Rupert face off in the Caliosteo Cup, Jkonna's in -her- story. She came with the digadig chieftain to see them. Jkonna's her older sister. Pauleen literally ran away with a possessed mask, like, of course she'd be worried, haha.**

 **Because of feelsy Dinopression in The Stone Fossil Fighter, Jkonna never brings this up and honestly forgets about it, not putting the pieces together until now.**

 **So there's some background about all of this for you xD**


	4. Rt: Expectations

**Rupert: it is time I suppose**

 **Me: you _suppose_**

 **Mistress: -Just suppose, dearie? Oh no please don't start on such a hesitant note!-**

 **Rupert: …**

 **Me: diction is key**

 **Mistress: echoes -Diction is key!-**

 **Rupert: -sighs and leaves-**

 **Me: oh lover-boy**

 **Mistress: -My poor child-**

 **Me: poor heartbroken baby**

 **Mistress: -The poor darling-**

The Aloft Fossil Fighter

Chapter 4: Expectations

 _Rupert_

 _A soft, pale face. The light always hit her just so, spreading a luminescent sheen in hidden corners of her eyes, of her cheeks, of her lips. Those shining violet orbs, big and warm and... sweet. A kindness that is hers alone has enchanted me however many times before, and I make no attempt to resist the shy smile now. Why would I? Oh why turn away from the gentle soul?_

 _Orange curls frame a rectangular face, angular cheeks, a dash of blush chasing porcelain skin like streaks of paint. The tiny smile pushes together: shy, so very shy. My heart races—never could I have helped it—and I want, and I want, and I want... ah, how I do. My fingers tracing the soft, pale cheek; fingers tracing the soft, pale nose; fingers tracing the soft, pale lips. Ticklish, she bites at her lip and tries to stifle her giggle, only ultimately reduced to cupping her face with her hands and scooting back, an apology streaming through her clamped fingers._

 _Cute, no?_

 _And so I would follow, as if these feelings of mine were but a game to be toyed with. My hands would cover hers and gently would I pull hers away; her red face revealed, her eyes in any direction that is not mine. The soft lips pressed together, the shy stare, only coming in small darts toward me. Toward and away, toward and away until I tuck my fingers around her head and gently pull her into my eyes. There she halts, breath in her throat. But oh, the sweet ticklish darling, awkward giggles pull from out of her and she trains her eyes down to the floor where we sit. Her own hands, locked together—weakly—form her point of focus._

 _While she watches, there I nab her by surprise, my lips stroking her cheek, pressing and lining to just the edge of her ear. Breath upon her, face close, quiet._

 _Her eyes have yet to meet mine, have yet to stay. I wish to take her face into my hands again... to look into her, to see her..._

 _Auh, Dina... but it never changes, does it? Never changes..._

With a gasp my head snaps from the earth before plummeting back into the hard marble below; stars blot out my vision and I bite my tongue with a muffled cry.

That dream again. Ah, how it entails me, its fingers cold and hard and stabbing into my coattails. A vise grip declines release of its prey... Shaking the pain out of my head, I start to move, pull myself to my knees, to my feet, a wobbling stand, the shake of the head. Lights dimly blimp from in front of and behind me... the barren halls remain devoid of any other sound than my panicky breath, slowly sedating as I recollect.

Before, I would wonder: what would be the worst part? How I would never hear that soft voice again... how I would never see those eyes, vivacious and warm again... how I would never touch her cheek again, feel her warmth again, taste her lips again... oh, none of these things left me as hungry as waking. For then she was gone again. At least in dreams I caught glimpses.

Although, that is not true either. Seeing her gave me a memory. The memory resurfaced, a tanked ship, in my sea of dreams... and those dreams were not Dina but mere pieces of her from afar. These pieces make up a Dina who does not exist currently, a Dina grounded into the past. And the Dina from the past does not grow, does not change, for a Dina from the past is not alive. We don't coexist when she is not here...

Ah, but that is not possible any longer: coexistence. The word leaves me smiling bitterly. I shake my head, straighten myself, and I move on. The cold hard tiles of the castle floor pass by with a whisper like dust of sound: _cuuh cuuh cuuh cuuh cuuh_... The hard soles of my boots cut into the otherwise silent corridors, and each turn begins to unnerve me. I try to throw my nerves off with intervention of some other thought, but the only thoughts left within me are of her, and she is gone, and thinking about her is hard, but that is all I have: fear and Dina. But... no, they are the same now. Because she is no longer here.

Oh, dear. Missing her... being without her... I never realized how much I... I relied on her. Not truly. I thought I did. Only I was proven wrong by her loss... I must have been wandering these bottom-floor corridors without solace for some few hours ago, sleeping, thoughtlessly, battling this shock. I-I knew it was coming; we all knew it was coming. Yet here I am now.

Only losing her aches so much inside of me that wandering aimlessly without cause leaves me sapped and empty. But what do I... wh-what do I do? I never... had such a thought come from within me. Before Dina I... I had nothing, truly, nothing but a father who planned all I did for his company anyways. Money, money, and a soulless son. But she woke me... she woke me and... and...

What am I... outside of that? I... I am unsure.

Dina just means... so much to me... that I never actually thought about myself. Ah. That must be an... an issue. But... But I-I know I should care, but... but... _Dina_...

Now what? I attempt to refocus, my eyes glazed over the chamber? What happened? Oh—The memories. Yes, I... yes, I have them. Ulh... Dina's possession, losing her to the beast that took over her mind, watching as the girl I so love who so loves me back lost her... mind... lost her... consciousness. I swallow. No, that is not what I search of right now. Something else. Passion. Something... something... ah, what should I do, now that I manage the feeble task of consciousness myself?

My vivosaurs. Not with me—No, not at all. Perhaps I should go find them. Oh... yes, probably. So I will do that. And... who else? I-I do not know. Dina. Yes, Dina, how about that? I-I go find the self-righteous ancient who thought it a sound idea to go and steal _her_ of all people...

My eyes close. I rest my head against my palm and I stay like that for a little while. Parts of my body ache in waves. I cannot attest the reason why, although the cause of my head and tongue is known enough. But... my eyesight in throngs, my legs weak, my chest... throbbing, just above my heart. Why? What have I done to myself? Care... Care I've ignored. Gently I lift a hand, and I stare into the fabrics of my dusty red coat, the one I have worn for however long now. Dina liked it... how it felt. And I liked letting her wear it sometimes. She looked cute in it: disheveled, small, smiling, warm. Precious.

Dhh... Dina.

Shaking my head. I whisper to myself in this putrid rasp to focus on the vivosaurs first. On Mistress—yes, my mapo queen. Her elegant and brooding red eyes, the scale that flips over one orb and leaves the other a haunting beauty. Her royal blue tones inlaid with purple, a radiating strength... I have had her for longer than the other vivosaurs. She... has seen quite a... lot of me. More than... Dina has, of course, because I never knew Dina as a child. Dina... had other problems: amnesia, her—ah—foster family.

There I go again... A weak smile catches my lips.

It seems every other thought I form holds some essence of her. A piece of me—torn—feels that I should take great pains to end this... because, quite frankly, it hurts me more to remember. But... But to cast her aside—ah, even in this broken mental state of mine it comes off as a blasted woe. I finally reach the staircase to the front of the marble hallway, and a pale hand clasps the frigid stone rail, and my foot slowly lifts and slowly places itself upon the first step.

My head rickets forward. I catch a breath. Stone and colors of muted gray swim in front of me; I thrash forward and land gracelessly with my head on the stone, a cracking whisper twisted into the air.

Quickly I shove myself back upward and force two hands onto the railing. I snap my shaking body together, collapse my lips into form, tighten my fingers, only stopping to give a hesitant wipe at my forehead: a dent that will stay with me for some time, a line of blood, although I doubt enough to do as much damage as I'd think.

My grim smile touches the cold air around me.

Ginger step by ginger step, excruciatingly slow, carries me up and out of that bottom floor. I reconstruct my memories of the castle with a care just in case any recent ruptures has dented such, although I find myself intact. The coat about me—a refined scarlet—bunches with the air although it does little good against what could age into a late-blooming cold. The air comes off as... dirty. Naught else. My nose wrinkles. What was I searching for? Di—My vivosaurs, right. P-Perhaps she could be next... perhaps.

Alright. I stop, woozy, and rest myself standing at the top of the first floor. One single glance back into the semi-dark abyss of the basement below, and I blink, disgruntled, and turn back around. One hand twitches toward my face but I ignore it and swallow whatever it is that surfaced in my mouth. Nomadistan was a nice little place before I lost her, before... before I lost a lot of things, I suppose. But I only ever thought about her... even so. Nomadistan, here in its shining marble glory, the accentuated castle of gold highlights and all, has shifted with the cooling stiff air of silence.

My eyes I feel narrow as they trounce the chamber. A long carpet runs off after a joint in the hallway, coating the black-and-white checkered marble. Windows line these corridors like knights of a royal guard, a bright-hot light of morning chills burning into the ground and the surrounding area. I step somewhat closer and pull a shaking hand into the light. A trace of warmth remains from the chill of the snowy outside.

Waiting, I stay there. Waiting for what? Waiting for my head, I suppose, my swimming head to pick itself up and continue on with me. Skewed thoughts cannot play sense into terms; it merely spins in its circles without thought. And this airiness inside of me gives off the impression of leakage, like I slowly run dry of myself as I wait in this accursed and cold, cold fantasy. Once I find my way to our—ah—once-shared chambers I should search for a more suitable coat. As much as I prize this one and as long as I have had it, the coat and my sleeves underneath remain thin on my shoulders, unsuitably thin for this weather.

Is _she_ cold?—I—ah—Stop that... Stop doing that to yourself.

She is not even herself any longer. Her body was... possessed. By someone else entirely. Not her. She is gone. Let go of it, let go of it...

Ah, why do I bother when I know my own lies cannot convince me?

Eventually, eyes closed, heavy breaths, I reawaken and I go on. How many floors above was it... I keep count when I enclose another staircase, and another. Soft carpet scuffs my boots. I purposely drag my feet through it. The coattails behind me flicker and at times I worry I will step on them and then trip and fall a second time. Although I have yet to, this does not assuage any later occurrences. Ah... I wonder absently when the windows, some chipped and dripping glass shards, had taken such a hit, and what had caused the damage. She comes to mind, not Dina but the small monster inside of Dina... but could something so small inside of someone so precious and so small really...

No, of course they could. I... I was possessed, ah, once. I should know. Zongazonga: rather crude host. I recall his... stay... well. Unlike Dina's own situation, he simply evicted me from my own consciousness, and that was that. I lived more or less in the open air for a... for a time. It was... frightful. E-Especially when Dina found me—or, well the creature inside of my body found Dina—and she thought he was me—and he... he... came close to harming her. A frightfully... close.

Ah. Why am I thinking about these thoughts? They're unsightly. Mistress. I wanted Mistress and the others, and I presently search for the direction toward my chambers in order to retrieve all five of them. When was it that I revived the fifth... I suppose just hours prior to the Nomadistan tournament... "Nomadii Cup". Now that Todd has become situated here, Dina leaped at the chance to visit him again, and... well, I have yet to actually... refuse her...

The little smile returns, uplifting the very corners of my lips.

Yes... I know. She cannot stand up for herself. Because of this trait, for years she allowed her foster parents to berate her without the lifting of a finger; others walk over her as often as not, if not more. Torn despises society because of this, despises people and despises me—I may have hurt her... o-once or twice, but no matter how much I love her, he despises people who are not Dina, and I am a person... who is not Dina.

And she is... not very strong, either; thin and small and frail and gentle and kind and sweet and her heart is larger than her height, practically consumes it. And her clumsiness knows no bounds; and she stutters when she speaks; and her body lets off a weak heat... and she makes me happy. There is a gentle warmth inside of her that only she has. Someone whose physical strengths may overlap hers whose own heart suffers... someone who lacked faith in themselves, who lacked much faith in anything... someone who would eventually find all of these things increasingly precious to them, who would trip up staircases through frigid weather, who would put themselves through plethora stupidities to save... her.

If... If I could.  
She already saved me. I... I must return the favor. Simply I must.

Another flight of stairs glides beneath me. I nearly trip again but I catch myself this time; as the wind swoops and whips me about, my forehead's loosening throb reigns in. My attempts to ignore it go futile, so I go a little faster, then faster, speeding through hallways and tearing up spiral staircases and whisking this way and that until my breath goes off like bundles of dandelions to the wind. My heart pounds in my head loud enough to block out my itching forehead which must be licking, by this point, in some strain of blood.

Until I arrive—nearly missing it until I reach the hallway with that idiotic chair left—now having fallen—in the midst of the corridor, which I pass and then lope down the stairs of on the other side. Todd and Pauleen stayed there—I do not know nor care where they might lie now. I... I have other plans. Dina. Yes. _Dina._ I-I want Dina...

Shaking my head. Mistress—Gyntis... the others. I should unearth them, ah, first. Sunny, Tessa... and him, too, I suppose. Although he is... a rather idyllic and posh thing. Still. Even so.

Another mad dash and another near-fall and there, panting, there I halt in front of the door that housed she and myself for a cozy few days, perhaps nearing a week or so of time prior to the event of the collapse, prior to the possession taking full hold, prior to losing her so outright: Zongazonga merely booted me as Dina's own soul, so far as I can tell, was crushed into the very pit of herself so that his daughter could take place instead. We heard from snippets of the thing's story that she had lied there for some large figure of time before regaining the strength in the form of sapping my dear's energy to take Dina's body for... herself.

Dina, my beloved Dina... oh, the weak pushover she is... as much as I love her, I fear, now, in a sense of crude understanding, that... my last time seeing her has been finalized. And now she is... she is... gone, would it be?

I should see her—ah, no, _Mistress_. I still have to find Mistress, at the very least. Right here, and I have hardly the heart to go on. Goodness me. Shaking my head, I trace a shaking finger along the cut in my forehead. When blood returns, I wince, brooding, slowly pressing my silvery bangs over my head in the faint attempt to disguise it. My finger—bright ruby red—I stare and I cannot be sure what to do with this blood, for if Mistress saw it certainly she would worry needlessly for I would rather not find out how long... ahh, I streak it across the frame of the door—wincing—and finally place my hand upon a cold metal knob and turn and enter and twist the cold metal knob behind me, and release comes like a steamy hiss on my fingers.

Dark, drawn chambers: curtains hung over the windows. These remain open, remain untouched so far as I can tell. The thick bed in the side room, the living chambers in front. I check a nearby drawer for any clothing and gratefully supply myself with another layer of fluff: the amber fabric I pull over my head and duck into. The sleeve... goes past my fingers. I blush at this. But it is warm so I don't move them.

With a bated breath, I raise my hand to the brink of the soft brown drawer, to the tip of the smooth top where they lie, where she lies, a bejeweled blue: waiting, waiting. The eye in the medal draws me, the illustrious red, redder than the finger I hastily wiped. Her brooding blue, her waiting waters, the equanimity lapping, shores upon me, so I suck in a breath and I take my hand upon the medal and immediately after me the body removes itself from its place and out and off into the open.

 _BRRRHGH!_

Crashing off the drawers she leaves holes in with hulking claws, down and off, tail a swiveling comet behind her, raising, raising to a good foot or two above my head, her sparkling body deep and dark and gently watching me as I watch her in turn.

I swallow. _Mistress_. A rasp. I wince again. A finger goes for my forehead but I pull it back again. Ignore, ignore, ig—

 _Ruupeerttt! Auh, my child, what have you done to your poor face!_ One paw—sheathed claws—cups said face and scrutinizes—releasing soon after. She comes up tittering with a weak expression. _Oh, dear! You poor child! That will leave a mark that I doubt will disappear in the next week, now won't it! Oh, it's so... ugly! Ugh! I rather dislike it having marked you like so! Oh, what a mistake, making such hard stone into a living space! Look at you shivering! Oh, oh dear! Oh my! My poor child!_

And there it is, nameless, heat on my cheeks, my eyes sliding past her shimmering royal face, the mapo queen's head tilted just so slightly. _Mistress... you need not. I take my wounds as anyone else would. They... happen. Please don't worry about it... I will be fine._

She pouts anyways. A hulking despair, her large body folding toward mine, only halting when she closes in. Resistance: a small pat upon my head but naught else. She watches when I flinch back. The curl upon her maw is... hard to look at... so I avoid it. Physical touch... and people... were never much of a priority of mine.

Then perhaps it is my fault I let my life collapse in on itself.

 _Rupert!_

 _We knew it was coming,_ I remind her, _all of us knew, but I hardly changed at all to that response. I let my love for her keep leading and... once she was gone, she was gone. I let myself go. It is... alright._ The stabbing in my forehead distracts me. _I... I will be alright. It is... it is..._ Shake of the head. It remains, a stubborn fog encircling my head. Fresh stinging pain. I do not move myself, my held head, my sigh.

Her eyes travel me, finding—no doubt—my increased pallor, the sunken cheeks, the head that tilts toward the earth, then of course my bruises and bumps and other paraphernalia assisting in the aches that string me together. Hours have passed, perhaps a day or two, nothing more... already her chagrin is stifling to be around. I avoid the paw about my head and go further, gently touching the cold medals, waking the vivosaurs inside.

Next is Sunny. Small, yellow. The marple's searching blue eyes take in me, take in the palpable absence of Something Important, and then she winces and avoids me back. Tessa, her beige hide bunching in upon itself, shivers and practically ignores all else anyways, the pachy likely in disgust of the new weather changes, and Gyntis hobbles past her in his shriveled e-raptor state, his tongue lolling in a sense of disgust.

And then the final one. I hesitate before the medal, recalling his last act of, ah, flamboyance. But then I remember Dina, and I remember her own problems with her own vivosaurs, and her sense of willfulness to continue even with those problems and... trying would not hurt, would it? I still shiver, my cold fingers pressed into the cold of the metal, and I suck in a breath and my chest sticks together weakly, and it is a little hard to breathe, but I do it anyways.

Sitting, smug, on his new little pedestal, the creature balloons into sparkling blue fins tinged in blue and sharp brown eyes, cutting teeth, a crooning purr upon his lips as he reaches out to me, his smile belated and unwelcome and... creepy. _Aaaaaaaaah, oh_ lookie _look who it is! You have returned, oh have you, Ruuuperrrt? Mmh?_ I take in a breath, stepping back. H-He unnerves me. _Well, my_ apologies _, Rupert! I don't meeeaaan to unnerve you! It seems we share that... not in common! Ahahahaha! How flattering of me, yes? Yes, very flattering, rather sweet, wouldn't you say?_

I try not to make any sudden moves as I call for Camri to get off of the dresser. My face is redder than it was a minute ago.

 _Mmmmmmh? But what if I find it enticing over here? Can I not_ sit _and_ stay _for awhile? Ohh, Rupert, what are you: a busybody? Must you scurry yourself this way and that, here and there, must you keep yourself moving for so often? Why not rest, up here... with me? You'd enjoy it, I assure you._

Swallowing, I pretend he has yet to speak. _Camri, please... I am in search of Dina—_

 _Oh!_ He shoots the word, cackling. _Oh, Diiiiiina! That's right!_ Ah, I wish he didn't use her name so— _The giiiirrrrrrrlllllll, uh? But she's not around now, is she? Ah, what's the matter? No need to pout now, do you? Ah, no need at all! I'm sure I brighten your life without her so well enough that you have no need to even see her again, now isn't that right! Pleaaaaaaase, I know these things._ Of course you do. With a grunt I turn and back toward Mistress who at least doesn't speak toward me with such a stuffed accent.

Besides... I like Mistress. I have known her since I was much younger; since my prodigy was first discovered and my father first made use of me as the prince of his company; since my late mother met her end; since, well... the majority of my memories. A-And even so, her fretting is far more comfort than the krona on the opposite end of the room.

 _Ohhh, Rupert; he's just teasing. You know that..!_ She offers a warmth that I collect to willingly, but... even so, those royal dark orbs glisten when she watches Camri. I wish she wasn't so kind to everyone... to Camri... th-though I suppose Dina would act on similar terms, did she ever meet him...

But I would not let him _sit_ near her. I-If she allowed... no, I would not even if she pre...preferred—ah, she would not prefer, would she? I—This is what is so... difficult about her being gone. Now that she is, now that I, for all I know, will never see her again... I will never know these things. For some reason it hurts, cold, freezing hurts, bare fingers digging, dirty cold nails in my chest hurts to think about it, think about how I will never know now, not even if she will take the side of his ridicule or allow me to step in. Not even knowing something as simple as such.

The grim smile returns; it disperses when a certain krona makes it known. _Why do you smiiile so much, huuuhh?_

With a sigh, I gently brush a bang out of my eye and take leave to the door again. I have no other uses for being here, although—my eye catches, at the end of the dresser, a certain pair of gloves. Black, fingerless, merely covering the palm in thick, warm material... and I think about Dina and taking them off and letting her hold my hands without such covering—and I think about the chill in the air and how red they are now—and I slowly take them, and slowly slide them unto me.

But I will take them off when I... when I see her again. This is temporary. My hands are... cold. Of course this does no justice to my fingers, regrettably, but with the sleeves already so long I believe well enough that I will last. Still ignoring Camri, I push past the rest of my vivosaurs to prop open the door.

But I pause. And I wait. Mistress slopes and stops beside me and waits. Quickly Gyntis struts toward the opening, his chafing skin and chafing eyes ablaze with color and thoughts as he exists. Sunny follows without a word: merely another nervous glance. And Tessa exits with but a thought of rebuttal in her gaze.

I consider going now. Surely, Mistress will follow. Her heavy eyes take a stab in Camri's general direction, and, of course, he remains unmoving on his little pedestal: audience of zilch in awe of him. He still has a few choice words for me, which he hurtles: _You can't just leaaaaave, can you? Rupert, you must at least take some other pair of pants, yes? Put them on. Layers! Oh, layered pants, those sound... familiar? What is that in your head? Oh—Don't tell me someone else had the idea first! Well, they're wrong—and certainly stole it from me, first, anyways._

He misses the smirk I leave at the door, entering, exiting, out into the hallway.

That was Torn. That was all Torn. I cannot quite define why, but her notorious dimetro enjoyed the facetious effect his swagger would have on... a, ah, friend, did he continually jest at the poor boy's fashion sense, which included, among other frivolities, pants that were layered on top of each other, shorter pair above the longer. The reason Dina even beat Cole had to do with how uncomfortable he grew around Torn.

Although I suppose one cannot blame him: Torn is... an imbecile. A fire-breathing imbecile. But he keeps Dina safe... he has attempted to for many years now. Longer than I knew her: much, much longer. He was there when she was afraid, he was there when she felt unhappy, he was there when she smiled. Which is good. Which is... very good...

 _Hey!_ I start as a certain finned thing slithers through the crack in the door, pushing it—and in effect, me—to his ability to exit. _Dina's the one who broke her hand, isn't she? Back when I was still very much not around, and your life was utterly boring, I'm sure. Didn't that happen at some point? That happened, right?_

 _Where did this come—_

 _Nowhere_. Smug grin. I glance away, lips pressed together. He is... annoying. _I've just been casually prodding at your memories as they keep showing up, since you've spent such a long, dull life in my absence. So! She_ did _break her hand! Which one... right hand, is that? Yeah, that's her right hand. Hoo. That is one ugly sling on one ugly gir—_

Any words that come to mind I silence, for this is not the time nor the place to use them. Like he would listen anyways. But he pauses, even so, breaking off his own words, and waiting. Then moving on. _You think she isn't ugly? Her face is so... angular, and she's soooooo thin, like if you touch her she'll snap apart or something. Some big, gaudy purple eyes, the hair's too much on someone so tiny and thin, and her face is just... so... geometric. Ugh._ Pausing. _A really long and... and thin nose, too. You don't understand what I mean, do you? Well, by the end of this I'm sure you'll get that she's just an ugl—_

 _Stop that._ Quietly. _Stop._ I doubt he hears me; I doubt I care. _Stop calling her that._

 _Because she isn't?_ His thin, playful grin; I do not look but I can feel it, slimy, crawling. Taking in a breath I shake my head.

And I tell him, _Maybe to you she is... that. But I see otherwise. So... stop._

He is still in the door frame. I... I was never one to act, more so reliant on voice, but... but I could... I could... I see it, the ugly cry, the slam of the door against wall, his push back inside, lock, lock...

He sees it too. And he watches me, head cocked. But I sag. Without looking at him, I step away and I move on. He is not... worth the effort. Whatever possible effort there is. I stop before moving on, press my palms into my eyes, breathe, and then I go. My head remembered its wound at some point within this, and I feel it throb every other step. So I sigh. But I do not stop. Stopping... would be... No, I will not stop.

Moments later, there he is again. _How'd she break it? Like, seriously, her hand of all things—how the heck did she manage that?_

I blink slowly. _Someone... stepped on it... while she was on the ground._

 _Wow, that's really stupid! I would never let some idiot do that to me! That's just... stupid! Why would you care about someone who got her hand stepped on so stupidly? She must be a real idiot, huh? But that's okay; I'll be the smart one now, so it's okay. I'm here._

My pace quickens by a good few steps. Camri keeps pace, the obtuse idiot he is. _And if you broke one of the bones in your body, would you accept that she is—_

 _I don't know what you're thinking, Rupert! I can't break bones! Well not really. If I do, I just go right into my medal and recover, so therefore, since this_ Dina _can't, that makes me stronger and better and... a much more fitting companion, yes? I have supple proportions as well. My eyes don't match with my fin colors, but that makes them pop out, and that is an attractive quality to own._ He glances at me, humming to himself. _Your eyes are striking too. Probably why people flock at your feet, those eyes. Maybe a couple other things but mostly the eyes._

He watches longer. Then he waves me off. _Aaaaah, whatever. You're not listening. You don't care. Which is quiiiite the shame, because you will not often see me bending over to speak with those below me, although I must admit that the general populace all stand below me, so I suppose I do this more than you would righteously expect of me. How kind of you, to worry for my safety, speaking with all of these lowlifes! But worry not, Rupert; I will not be vanquished so easily. Besides, they can be slightly amusing, am I right?_

I continue my attempt to ignore him, the grim smile returning. The corridors beckon. I focus on them, on the turns, the twists, the numerous staircases, on not tripping a second time. Upstairs, we go upstairs. We started on the bottom, but... to continue up, perhaps I—or one of them—will catch some sort of clue on where she is now. Because I... To not find her would be a shame. Yes, it... it would be. Rather.

As they go on, I halt and turn back toward Mistress, who at the very least will not insult Dina to my face. Although I doubt she insults most anyone; my old possessor, Zongazonga, has yet to feel a hit from she herself. Kind, delicate Mistress. Naïve Mistress. Those reddish eyes look one way then look another. Her feet tromp into the carpet and punch holes in small places, nervous claws kneading into it. I wonder what sort of damage has taken the castle by now: all of those windows, the carpet, whatever else was touched by the friends of creatures like Zongazonga himself. He is gone now—he is far gone. Whatever "death" translates into on ancient terms. But not his daughter. Oh, no, not his daughter, inside of my Dina, having been inside of her for longer than we know... and having just switched consciousness with her, with my Dina.

How dare... she. Dina was not as strong as she is—ah, was—and I am now. She was not as strong when she defeated him, utilizing both her vivosaurs and my own. Be-Besides, hers must be around here somewhere, yes? They must be. Torn is not alone... Trikko, who always found some way to form a logical conclusion, Nyra, who has grown rather close to Mistress... striking Reyna, peppy Aladee.

She jolts slightly at her name. _Rupert? We haven't seen... um, any of them, you know. Not even Torn. Not even a voice, or a scent, or a slight indication of one of their thoughts roaming around the chambers here. Nothing... And... Dina's in no good state. She's been... that girl has been inside of her for long enough it was easy to... take her body. I'm not sure this is quite... what you think._

I digress. She looks off.

 _Rupert... Don't you see it?_ There my eyes look up from the ground and toward her. Toward those seeping, sappy eyes, a ruddy sanguine. The weak stare, the swallow, the sigh. _You're putting up barriers all over again... Just Dina now, is it? Just Dina and Torn and the others. Is that it? Are those the only ones allowed in your life?_

 _Mistress—_ Such concern—

 _Well they're... none of them are here right now..! So would you please stop searching with that awful stare on your face and realize that you are alone! I-I'm sorry! I-I'm here! They're not; I am! And you have four other creatures, right here, who have been trying. And trying. And trying..._

She watches as I lose focus on her. As I blink, as I shake my head, as I murmur, _No... no, I'm not sure about that. She is... around here. Somewhere, yes? Somewhere. And I am sure Torn is here. Torn found me before, he found me the last time I could not find her. You recall that, yes?_ When Dina's possessor began to awaken, when she would lash out and cry and she weaned herself off of sleeping because she hated the nightmares. When Nomadistan decreed it would be safer to keep her locked up somewhere. Just to be safe. _And Torn found me, and he let me see her, and he let me try to take her back again... try to... try to..._

When I glance back up again, hopeful, pleading, her gaze has been left unchanged. Unremarkably emotional. _Dina's not here_. Quietly. _Dina is not here. Not._

 _Yeah..._ Tiny Sunny wriggles through the space by us, her yellow fins flashing under the cold light. _Yeah, she's really, um... she's not. Also you don't think much about yourself. Which is... Which I don't think is, um... healthy. Not... Not really. You can... die and stuff. That way._

Shaking my head. _I will be fine. I will find her and I will be fine, and she will be fine, and Torn is here somewhere—or maybe not Torn, but someone must be... someone, someone..._

And then I hear it. And then we all hear it. Thickset footsteps, _BUM BUM BUM_ , charging into and through the stone and slaughtering it aside and onward, onward. And the voice of those thickset footsteps comes of in waves, and one of such stout proportions could never be Torn but it is someone else I know, so without another thought I pull Mistress closer and get a leg around her and climb up upon her and tell her to follow those thickset footsteps and do not let them get away.

Gyntis mutters _Aw, shit_ without context. I never even heard him curse before, so I stare at the e-raptor for a moment. But he does not look back, merely shuffles forward, and as does Tessa and everyone else. But I know what I hear; and they know what I hear; so there is no reason to halt...

In the thrumming of the motions, I catch glimpses of the figure: a fanned and spiny head, icy eyes, rotating pinwheel coloration of red and blue, and—oh, I implanted that fossil, the one that empowered him and altered his scheme from a regular tricera's to... this. Trikko... of course. Of course it is Trikko. And he is running, running harder and running faster than I thought he could run.

Camri makes a comment on appearance and Just How Stout a Vivosaur Should Be, but I pay him as little attention as I have prior. _Trikko_. Trikko is _her_ vivosaur, and Trikko is _here_. Something urgent has kept him from noting the small ensemble he has procured, but he is here, he is right here, and I can tell it is him and not another strengthened tricera by the stern lowness of the voice:

 _Closer closer closer closer—gah, farthe—this—no, farther—gaaaahhh... Closer! Ah, closer, closer..._

Buzzing encircles his horned head, thrashing this way and that, waiting, seeking. With a snort he bashes into a wall and goes on without another thought to a harsh right.

A-Alright. He never did that when I knew him prior to this moment, but enough undeniable evidence proves this is Trikko anyways. After two smashes straight into the same wall, he himself pauses to consider: _Is this right? Am I... listening to the facts... or to the heart..? I don't even know. How annoying. Ulh. I already feel my conscious slipping, though, so I should keep going... I'm... I'm almost there..._ But then a pause. _Who's to say I'm merely weak? Who's to say all I have to do is rest and wake up and then I will be better? Who's to say this is right at all? Ah, I hate all of these variables... but I should... I should_... For good measure, he rears into the wall yet again, and then he turns. _Closer._

I watch the brazen frenzy of red-and-blue scales go on. His head teeters on his shoulders, his shoulders sag into his chest, his chest beats of a weak heart, his heart echoes in the corridors, loud as his footsteps if not louder. His heavyset body shifts and shifts and crumbles and shifts, his feet slow but sure in his conquest. _I daresay I'm... close... Yes, I... I think I... I think... I... I think..._ And he pauses. Head erect, he turns sharply, and he stares. Big and bemused blue eyes. _Ah. Rupert. Didn't... I didn't..._ Slowly his head lowers, the concentration bending him. _See you. Didn't see you... there. Oh, ah... Hello as well... Mistress. Gyntis._

He bothers not with any other sort of acknowledgment. His body hastens with shivers. Just watching him pushes the pressure upon me and I almost feel it, almost taste the metal tang of pulsing blood inside of me. His face, having flushed, turns back forward again. _It's only expected you'd... you'd be... ah—looking. Hm? Only... expected. Well, ah... come... come along. Y-Yeah... yeah..._

 _Trikko... What happened to you?_ I murmur. He bothers not turning a second time. Merely shakes his head and thrusts forward again.

A smirk touches the maw of my addressed e-raptor. _So he recognizes me of all people—and you, Mistress—and hardly has the capacity in his mind to number any other? Well. That's unusual, uh? Though I guess being alert so often as he tries to be would be unreasonable._

 _I—Still..._ I watch the hobbling figure. His weak state, his haphazard strut, the mutterings of a madman clouding his head. _Trikko is not like that. I-I have never seen him remotely resemble that, not... not ever._ He rams into another wall before turning left. I wince.

 _Yes, that's, right, Rupert: because he was always that way around you, that means he can't change._

My eyes close as I release a breath. _Gyntis. You know I don't..._ I wince again. _Nonsense. Even so, I_ do _know this tricera... I happen to know this tricera rather well. And he has not acted like such prior to now._ Wait—Dina... Trikko, the other vivosaurs missing... _C-Could it be that her pain affects him?_

Gyntis elongates his smirk, whips his tail into the cold marble floor below. _Sure, why not._ And then he is quiet, and so I am quiet, and Mistress had nothing to say anyways, so the hall returns to a silence only requited by Trikko's constant bumbling.

 _Something feels... wrong,_ I say softly.

 _Of course something feels wrong,_ echoes Gyntis. _You and that vivosaur. Hunh. It's kinda funny... but it's a sad funny, must I add. You and_ that _vivosaur, like it's not even_ us _. But what can I say? What do I know? Rupert, what do you know, mmmh?_

I blush. _I-I just said, something feels—_

 _Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wronnnnng_ , he rasps, as if testing it, _alright. Something is wrong._ His voice he brandishes, strong and old and unrelenting, like a sword out from his lips: _And what is wrong? What is 'something'? And is anything actually wrong? You could always be over-analyzing. Trikko's the kind of vivosaur to—_

Mistress grunts as I parry. _No, no, you know_ not _this vivosaur. I know him. I know Dina—I-I knew Dina. And so did he. And one can know a lot about a person based on their vivosaurs... and a vivosaur based on their person... yes? But I know Trikko. I know Dina. And while I cannot define your so-called 'something', I feel it... a... missing. Missing. Like Dina..._

Gyntis giggles languidly, adding, _Tell a person by their vivosaurs, ah? Funny you should say that._

 _Say what, exactly?_ I turn from my perch upon Mistress, turn my eyes from Trikko, and I get them into Gyntis and I watch.

 _Aaaaaaah, nothing you would know._ Smirking freely now. Head back and forth, a bluish tongue that flickers between his teeth. _Nothing you would know at all. You should, though; I most certainly think you should. But I suppose that's only that: a thought. Uh? Just a thought. A simple thought._

He sees it, of course. Sees my face redden, my eyes scrunch as I ask him, _What thought? Gyntis, what in the world do you refer to?_

And there he is silent. The maw snaps shut, the tongue disperses, the expression a lost enigma. _Nothing._ And no more. A futile glance toward my mapo queen tells me that I will receive no assistance in this nothing of his. But her eyes are still sad, low-hanging and sad.

 _Nnnnnnothing!_ Camri just must add to the conversation. _Nnnnnothing at all, pretty boy! Not like it matters! Aaaaaah, hah haaaah, no, not at all! Oh, look at you! You poor idiot! Poor, poor idiot—but worry not, Rupert! For I, Camri, just so happen to counteract your flaw with an onslaught of knowledge! So do not fear your stupidity, as I—_

 _He said nothing._ I rasp it. Camri misses it the first time, and he misses it the second. Not until he catches undertones of my voice does he halt himself and listen. _He said nothing, Camri: 'nothing at all'. So let it be, would you? Let it go..._

Having turned so to face the voluminous krona, his dark eyes sharpen toward me. Whatever it is he so nearly cuts is lost by the swerve of a harsh cry, pulling, pulling, passing and pulling outward. Trikko, I realize, as I turn, has disappeared into downstairs and into the shady opening just beyond. I swallow and press a hand into my icy cheek, and as I recall the temperature it hits me, a full walloping block, to my head. Stricken, I almost fall—again—and when I catch myself Mistress winces to the hands digging into her neck. I gingerly release, blowing a strand of hair out of my face, my face no doubt a chafed and reddened mess... but I swallow and pretend otherwise, oh simply. I pose a great care into shifting down Mistress's spine—even with her shortened size, and those of the other vivosaurs, they still proudly reign above me.

Something loudly bumps into something else. Trikko? I bite at my lip.

And here I am, at all sides flanked by a moving mass. Emotional red eyes, a sharp dark blue, silvery near-white, ocean blue, and hazel. A duck and I bypass all of this, and I step into the circular chamber slowly, my slow-moving mind trying to process where I am when my eyes follow the circular pews all around in the walls of ornate stature, the cushions and seats and royalties, and—

Throne.

There it is. Throne. Right in front of my blind eyes.

Trikko is nowhere to be seen, but I know I heard him waltz on in, and I think... I think... the one situated on the throne, doubled over, has something to do with his disappearance. Not even snippets of the face reveal beneath the waving curls in front of it, the hands clasped on stomach and panting, panting _hiiics_ and _aaahs_ and _haahhhs_ and breaths of pain. And I think a thin stream of blood dribbling from the stem of these noises... if I witness correctly.

Oh, but I would recognize the scaled body anywhere. The orange curls, the thin frame, the shivering, the voice. I cannot take into account the overhang of a brusque and angry yell within each syllable, cannot realize the extent of the freakishly thin body, ever so more thin than hers was when she fully was in control of it, and I cannot... care.

I lurch and I move and I pull myself toward that figure because I knew the soul inside of it and I think I think I _think_ maybe if Trikko if not here then he is in his medal or in _something_ and there she is now, there she is, _obviously,_ I see it with my own eyes, I see _her_ , and that means it is her. Of course it does. There is no otherwise.

When I reach her I glimpse up hopefully into the frame sitting and shivering into the seat of the throne, and I think I whisper her name or what was her name before it wasn't her any longer because the face rips out of its place beneath those curls and a gaunt stare greets me out of big gaping pits of eyes. By now it should be obvious. By now I should accept that this is not Dina.

But... But how can I? When it... when it's supposed to be? When it has to be? When it not being her is killing me, how can I accept any other way? I reach out and gently try to take her hand and those fingers spaz themselves open and with a flick of the wrist she slaps my hand away and then takes it further and leaps off the throne and shoves me and slaps me across the face as well. Her nails cut me. A sharp sting brings tears to my eyes.

A warning. Naught but a warning.

But how could it be? How can I accept this? This cannot be possible...

So I try again. One single step—one single step in her direction, the soft scoot of a boot on the cold marble floor, the hopeless desperation of my face reflected in her cold marble gaze. Her sneer, her sharp canines, her scales shifting and stretching and filling out into a figure that far stoops above me, larger than me, larger than Trikko—larger than Mistress, even—and I watch as it opens its maw and a dizzying blackness propels me.

The _KKRRGH_ of rubble in the distance.

The sharp _KRHK_ of bone breaking by rubble.

The nearby _KKKHK_ of a heart overflowing with love pierced by bone.

And I cannot hear another whisper in the air... nor do I feel whatever it is that comes next...

 **The poor baby realizes that no more Din-Din**

 **at least -that- there is no Din-Din**

 **What does this mean for the poor Rupy? buh buhhhhh**


	5. Rt: Pesky Little Things

**Me: The first chapter where someone's POV stays around for more than one chapter! Wow oh man oh man**

 **Camri: -I am so ready for my second unveiling-**

 **Me: right right of _course_ and I'm sure everyone else is too because you're just so... lovely**

 **Camri: -Exactly-**

 **Me: of course**

 **Camri: -I'm always right-**

 **Me: that you are**

 **Rupert: -loudly gets up at leaves-**

 **Me: :c**

 **Mistress: -He's been doing that a lot how hasn't he?-**

 **Camri: -But it's okay I'm always right-**

 **Mistress: -That... Um... Y-Yes, surely!-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 5: Pesky Little Things

 _Rupert_

My state, so troubled, nearly mistakes the lull of Mistress's murmur to another certain voice... _Ah, your eyes: they flutter... Auhh, thank goodness, dearie. We were worried sick... Al-Although we knew it would be alright, it still... it still... Rupert..._ Those brooding eyes fret over me and search upon me and halt at whatever it is she sees on my face. There her half-smile leaves her, and she hangs her head.

 _Mistress._ Carefully I prop a hand onto the soft fabric beneath me—mattress—to pull myself up. I face her. She blinks, head sly. I try to face her and unstoppably fluid she darts her face again. With my motions she thrusts and falters and pivots again until she leaves me with but a spiny back to stare at. _Mistress, why?_ Head raising. _What is it that sickens you?_ Body shifting. _Please, would you not tell me?_ when my head lurches and vertigo catches my crestfallen figure, to which I fall and curl, lamely, upon the rest of the bed.

Dull throbbing in my forehead. A bit of scorn picks at me as I raise a hand to touch it, quickly lurching back again. There I stay, panting, resting my hand into my head. So then I feel it, feel the rigid edges cut into skin, the weak chills within me, burning heat, shaking so slightly, my eyes nearly crossing with the effort to control myself. So there I close my eyes and I put my head into my hand and I rest for a little while. My heart beats pitifully.

I remember. There was black, there was pain, there were things crushing and crunching without heed or aim. There was a loudest sound that put me to sleep. There were yells. There were a lot of things... Her face burns most brightly in my head: the gaunt and mad eyes, her stare, her screech as she erupted into her frenzy of hatred, of pain, of... Trikko. Where did Trikko go? Oh, dear, I saw him with my very own eyes, only for disappearance...

With the tricera in my head I ask Mistress, _Did you ever find him? Why did... Why has he gone missing?_

She stays unrelenting. Her tail merely flickers. _I-I don't know. I didn't hear his... 'voice' anywhere. Or feel him or... or anything. Just gone. Mmmh... Weird._ Shake of the head. _But enough of that. Rupert, dearie... h-how are you feeling? Another few days left wastrel to rest... though I suppose rest is important too... nnnh..._

 _I ah... um..._ I pause. _Fine. I'm fine._

 _R-Rupert, a-aaat least consider the question!_ She pauses too. Then, quietly: _O-Or don't. That's... fine._

Oh. _I... Mistress..._ Pain grossly depicted, flayed and held open for all to see. Eyes trained on the tiles below. _My... apologies._ I pick at the blanket whose warmth suddenly rushes into me. I furl a small portion into my hand and press it into my face, cold as stone, cold as ice, cold as a mirror staring back at me. Wincing, I start again.

 _Mistress... Are you alright?_

She asks not for my answer but her apprehension takes form and lays itself down in front of me.

Well... um... _My head hurts... My, ah... face feels a little strange. It's cold._

Fine, I said; Fine, I said to the face of the lady who more or less raised me since a child and watched as I shut myself off to the world; Fine, I struck at this poor, gentle soul who merely asked for my well-being; Fine, I slung in return. I smile weakly to myself, sighing, wincing—my throat as well. She did mention days... Yes, _Fine_ ; no, of course not. I'm hurt.

That is it. I'm—I am hurt. My fingers tease over the serrated edge lining my jaw, perfectly cutting above the bone. Not quite striking—or if it had, the wound closed since—but I feel the warning burnt into me. Another warning... My fingers go to my ribs, next, the ribs I surely recall hearing snap as I hit the wall... only to find mere snippets of scratches.

I press a little harder to be sure. A little harder; a little harder—a soft cry awakens and I cease: bruises. Or one large one. One large bruise draped like a shirt up my chest. Perhaps some scrapes and cracks here and there.

What is this? I stare blankly into the chamber, only thus realizing that perhaps I should ask where I am. Yes, perhaps that is... important. Yes, maybe. Deep breath. Deep breath. I press both of my hands into my face and I stay like that for another little while, and I just breathe in my nose and out my mouth and I just breathe. Something hurts, but it is not my ribs, nor is it my face, but... but something else... something else...

 _Dina?_ she offers.

I wince yet again. _Mistress..._ Gently I tuck those thoughts behind me and try again: _Where... am I? Where—Where are... we?_

 _We are..._ She turns, then, finally, her face meeting mine head-on, her maw held tight. _We aren't very far from, ah... there. That room. You were, um... hurt... but not as badly hurt as you think. You, um... the cuts on your face are sloppy, but they're shallow. Something... Rupert, something strange happened when you very nearly lost your life. Um... We were all more or less speechless and... um, the like—_ her thoughts rumble and toss from that direction so I miss whatever it is she hides— _and... the strangest thing occurred, Rupert, the strangest thing: a... a vivosaur. A vivosaur flew out from wherever he had been before and... and, and, and... he was such a frightened little dearie and..._

She rambles on, thoughts askew, head shaking the subtlest shake and her eyes lidding over. A wave of tire I hadn't caught buffets me as Mistress lowers her thick head onto the bed. She puffs out a sigh, cheeks thick and then releasing, all of the tension knotting up in her body then somber. Another sigh. Release. _Mistress_ , I venture, _Mistress, what is it? I—ah—whom is it?_

 _The vivosaur._ She straightens without standing. I try for a breath and place my hand to her muzzle. The effect is immediate; she eases into my touch. _The vivosaur, Rupert... he was so... so large. He had the kindest violet eyes... not unlike Dina's, I surmise. No, not at all unlike hers. Only he was so big... and he was so strong, and he was so full, full, full of will, and I don't know what it was, but once he laid eyes on you he grew frantic and his great bulk took the brunt of your attack... though I admit he may have knocked you unconscious in his sloppy process. But even so... H-He may have saved your life, that—that strange vivosaur!_

The image curls into my head: sandy brown scales, a purple underbelly, enormous stature... and... yes: the kindest violet eyes. The sight of them causes me to recoil into whatever markings are on my face, to the bruise upon my chest. The cracks, the hurting... so I have a savior now.

My face twists.

Another savior. And I couldn't even save _her_. Much less...

Mistress jolts in my touch, but she quickly settles again. Another puff of breath. She continues, slowly, honeyed tone oozing, _Oh, he was so... tearful, and fearful, but he stood up to you. And... in his head, I think when he saw you, Rupert, I think he saw someone else. Someone... like you. It makes me wonder who he saw in your place... Ah, but he's gone silent now, this 'savior' of yours. Maybe he'll talk now that you awakened! He's in his own medal right now, off in the corner._ Her tail lazily flicks off in the direction of the desk on the opposite wall.

I take a step from my bed and lurch into the ground, my ankle rolling over with my venture. Paling, I stay with my fingers tucked about it for a moment. Unmoving. Burning. Face heating, heating with nerves, until I finally pull myself back up again and observe my little socked feet and continue. My boots must be around here somewhere; ah, and both layers of coat have left me as well. A finger goes to my forehead—my burning forehead...

Weakly smiling, I wonder what I have done to myself. I did not know... my body was this weak. Never was I an intensely strong person... yet even so... I wonder if _she_ was powerful or it was _I_ who was weak. But here I am even so... here I am, trembling beneath nothing but a uselessness in my throat.

The medal, I remind myself, the medal. I pull into the chair in front of the desk. There I stay, there I breathe, then I dare touch the cool glass and let the vivosaur come out, the—ah—seismo to approach and land meekly upon the carpet. He as well takes a smaller form, although this smaller form still overlaps with the Mistress who has slowly begun the effort of taking the mattress herself. She is too long and her feet roll over, and a length of her legs.

Then I eye him. The big head, the fearful stare, the nerves that swat at me.

He eyes me back. Then he squeaks. _Wh-Who are you!_ Loudly, loudly. _I-I thought you... you were... you—you felt like... but you, um, you weren't! A-A-Aren't!_

I need to stop for a moment when I realize his accent rivals my own. It—It is slightly unnerving to hear. But the seismo takes this in another direction and splutters, _Oh! Oh, oh, oh! P-Please don't get mad! Um! I-I'm trying, I p-promise, laddy! I-I just thought you were someone else, b-b-buuuut you weren't an-and that's o-o-ooookaaaay..._

He winces at his own voice. _I-I'm sorry. I-I'm not usually this... this..._

 _It is alright._ Those big, gentle, purple eyes latch upon me. I wince under the weight. _It is... alright. May I ask who I reminded you of?_

Pause. A shy glance this way, a shy glance that way... then he looks into me. _My, um... my fighter. He was... nice. But he wasn't all that bright of an old bean. N-No, that's not true... he just acted like he wasn't sometimes. H-He had a good opinion of himself, which was cool be-because not many people do, aye? And he liked to joke. A lot. Which was cool... Um..._

Oh.

 _Did he pass?_

My apologies. But... the way he speaks of his fighter... sounds as if— _I-I'm not sure. I got lost. It was raining... and it was wet and... the storm was so, so massive, my good lad... i-it was quite the fright and it picked me right on... right on up. And I eventually awoke to... here. S-So I don't know. But I know he's not here._

 _What was his name?_ Oh. My manners. _What is your name?_

 _Pi-Pippy!_ he shrieks, like it is all he is worth. _M-Mmmmmmmy name is Pippyyyyyyy!_ Skittish, then he cries, _A-And my fighter's name... Di-Dino..! He's... he's a good lad. He's a... good lad..._ The thoughts of this Pippy sit uneasy within him. Shaking, rattling, I cannot take hold of any piece, and I doubt his poor mind fares any better. And I wonder what it must be like, how it must feel to have such an onslaught of information tossed at his face and expected to be swallowed ,to be accepted. How it must have felt to awaken without someone so important to you, so important that you latch onto anyone at all who even slightly resembles him, and you cry to them, cling to them... and it is hard to breathe with all of the racket in your head... and...

And I think I know how he feels. _Pippy_ , I word, tasting his name, _Pippy... My apologies, but I cannot recall ever meeting a Dino._

His head hangs, but I believe that by now he had accepted this fate.

...now what? My face heats. I stare blankly at the wall behind the seismo, and I wonder weakly, now what?

Mistress flops her head from the covers. _Pippy, darling, would you like to come with us?_

The need in his thoughts is deafening; I lean back, breathing. But I stop and I realize, oh. Of course. This poor thing... Oh, Dina was much more skilled in the art of kindness... she had a way with making others smile... although I suppose that goes in hand with her passivity. As much as I read into another person, I only seem to read as much as I try to, and my own trials with them are... disheartening.

A gentle, small smile. I shake my head and it disperses, fragile. _If you would like, you can come. That is... ah..._ My voice falters: if he comes... if he comes with us, then... it only proves I cannot save Dina on my—

 _Oh, of course! We would love to have you!_ Mistress's tail whips over my head and rustles my hair. Turning, turning, she faces me with that wan and pained stare of hers and smiles toward the seismo. _We're currently in search of some of Rupert's friends, but I'm sure you'll be a great asset._

 _Asset?_ I mumble. _Friends..?_

She gives me this look and goes on without halt. _Yes, yes! Pippy, oh you must! Besides, if our dear Rupert reminded you of your dear Dino, then you shall get along swimmingly, yes?_ My face pales. I turn back. _And be_ sides _! The others will certainly love to be around you! I believe that Sunny will find you rather enjoyable, although she's always been more attuned to... logistics: yes... that. Pah. But Camri will find you cute, and Tessa would... Tessa... mmmh, Rupert, wasn't there a vivosaur she obsessed over? Was his name Pippy as well?_

 _No,_ I amend, rescinding my other opinions, _no, it was Poppy. Although it is possible she herself truncated her memory of the name and Pippy and Poppy are one and the same,_ to which I retreat back into my mild shade of irritation. A finger rushes over the jagged cut on my jawline; my lips press together.

Dina had cuts too. I recall them well. Dainty things on her cheeks, little scattered imprints of snowflakes. Whiter than her pale skin. And... there was worse on her back, on her stomach. All white marks now, ghostly fingers streaking up and down her body, but they are rough too. Crusading the line of my jaw, I feel as the cut slithers through my skin and wince at how it nears my eye. Not quite, but... it was there. I pause, breathing: it was there.

Pippy is saying something and I believe Mistress says something else in response but I ignore them, breathing gently. Curled up in the chair, my socked feet tucked into the edge, I continue to muss with the cut. It... pains me, to feel it, somewhere inside of me. I cannot tell what it is, but it hurts, hurts a lot just thinking of it, and I swallow and I want to know why. One day off in the future this will be but a white streak too, and maybe sometime even further it will disappear from my skin. I have cuts not unlike it on my hands—white streaks even now, some fading. Dina ignored them when she took these hands of mine into hers. I think it made her happy when I took off my gloves... something so simple, so small, yet her face lit from the notion.

How... funny.

 _Mi-Mistress? What's he smiling about?_

 _Oh. Dina—the girl I mentioned earlier. He's smiling about Dina._

 _Did... Did he smile a lot before, Mistress? It looks like a..._

 _Yes, Pippy dearie._ The soft voice, the soft, lacy whisper: weak and strong, weak and strong. _You're absolutely right. This is a... new smile. Yes? A new smile. I like it._

And he nods, head bobbling. _I-I like it too, Mistress. Dino's smile was like that once. He used to smile all the time... but then a lot of serious things happened, and then he didn't smile much anymore. It, like... it forced him, my dear old laddie, it forced him to see things in a much more serious perspective, and I think that molded him into a different person. Not a bad different, but he didn't smile, my dear Dino, for some time. His smile was like that after. But that's such a... weak smile._

Then I stop. Pippy whimpers and immediately sits, sending a shudder along the walls of the chamber. _I-I-I'm sorry! M-My grandest apologies! I-I-I said something wrong, di-didn't I!_

 _No._ I shake my head, the tension in my head releasing. _No, you did nothing wrong._ Perhaps it is the defeated look that raises his awareness, as if I would find it in me useful to feign amicability in times of distress. _No—I mean what I say, Pippy. She... made me smile, before she was gone._ Then why do I continue? I do not know. I just... do.

 _Oh_! He giggles, relieved and elated. _Like Droplet! Droplet makes me smile! She-She's a mite bit rowdy, but that's also a good thing, because I'm not very assertive myself, must I say. Aaaaah, Droplet.. . Oh, she must miss me, huh... Aww, I trust she doesn't miss me too much..._ And there he is in his cloudy thoughts, a second krona—a krona whose flexible build highly contrasts with the roiling bulk that is Camri—there she lies. Another one. Icy blue eyes... but I feel she is a kinder one.

The thought jumps in my head: my own vivosaurs. They lied not on the table, and not amok like Mistress or this Pippy—and not in the hallway, so far as I can tell. As lacking as I am with their attention, still... would they melt away? Would they want to leave? Ah... maybe they would. Here I am, desperate and lonely and... depressing, truly, depressing once again, just like before I met her... and my mapo queen was the only one who knew me then, so it is possible they lost interest. I-I don't... blame them, if they did. No...

Pippy's tail goes _WHUMP_ into the carpet: in the meanwhile he busts a long, thin, vertical line the width of his whip through the door. I doubt he notices, what with that bleary stare. _I-IIIIII like you! Rupert! I-I-I think you're cool!_

 _Cool._ My fingers travel from the trail on my face and pinch the bridge of my nose. _Pippy... as desperate as you are, I may not be the one you wish to hang around with. I am not... all that 'cool', as you so put it. Truly. The only time I even felt sated with myself was when I was with Dina, and as Dina is not here... I may as well be empty, fleeting... Fleeting entities cannot be held. You touch them and they melt into nothing. So I ask you..._ I sigh. A weight returns to my head and it tilts lower.

 _But! But, oh, but, but, but! But, my laddie, I-I do think you're cool!_

My cheeks heat. _You hardly know me, Pippy._ My heart beats; my head fleets; my eyes train themselves to the ground. And he does: just my mussed appearance and an inkling of my... indisposed self. Not... all that pleasant... no? I may as well be lucky enough Mistress hung around with me. Yes... And so the rueful smile reigns.

 _Oh! Oh! Mistress, he smiled again!_ I think he has given up on whatever convincing he has tried. _Do—Do you see that? Mistress! Mistress, it's a smile!_

The little giggle. _Yes, I see it, Pippy. Believe me, I'm counting each one. Even... even the sad ones. Even... the sad ones._ And I feel her nod at this; and I feel her tail swing up and down at this.

 _But... But Mistress..._ The seismo's squeaky voice drops. _Mistress—_ a belated and bumbling whisper _—the sad ones count the most! Those are the strong ones, because it's gotta take all kinds of triumph to do that when it hurts the most! Or—_ cough— _at l-least—_ cough— _that is what Dino thought. Um._

And from then on there is an awkward silence, only puttered at by Mistress's vain attempts of reinstating conversation. She compliments the seismo on his artful sense of thinking, and she compliments our mystery fighter too, and then she compliments me for some hogwash, and then she compliments herself. And then it is quiet. I think she gave up.

 _Ah! Rupert, you asked about the other vivosaurs, didn't you! Oh how foolish of me to forget so blithely! Please ignore that! So what was it? Where they went up to... ummmmm..._ Well. I did not say she gave up terminally. _Rupert, if I'm going to tell you where they went, you have to promise me not to get upset again! Actually... mmmmmaybe that's not something you can promise, but at least don't complain about it, will you? It's depressing, you beating yourself up about—_

 _A-Alright..!_ I tuck my head into my knees and roll it into my pant legs and stay like that, eyed narrowed. Embarrassed...

She sucks in a breath, then she goes, _S-So! So the others are... um... they're looking for Todd, Rupert. You know—your... friend._ I bite into my lip. _D-Don't get upset, alright! H-Hey, I told you not to!_ Of course they are. _We-We're going to find Todd—and, and hopefully Pauleen as well—and with them, we'll be that much stronger! I'm... I'm not sure if that amounts to muuuch stronger, dearie, but s-still! St-Stronger, Rupert, stronger! To save Dina with stronger!_ Of bloody course they are. _R-Ruuupert!_ My head rolls into my pants a little more.

 _Is Rupert sulking?_

Mistress bursts into a shrieking kind of unintentional laughter. _Oh, Pippy! I realize now... you must be right! He must be sulking! Awwww, oh, dearie! Oh, Rupert! It's alright, Rupert! It's alright not to be strong enough, dearie! This creature has been sucking energy from Dina for an unknown number of years—perhaps much longer than we'd like to think about—and Zongazonga was merely inside of you for a day at most! Of course this isn't enough for you to handle on your own! Of course!_ She pauses, coughing weakly. _Rupert. Rupert, please._

 _Yes, indeed!_ Pippy awkwardly juts himself in, but his voice is warm and sweet so I let it be, let him talk. I like listening, a-anyways. _In fact, Dino's sister—that's... that right! That's who we're looking for, that's why I was out in the ocean and got lost for so long and a plethora of other discrepancies, that's it. His sister... I, um... I can't remember much about her, but she had an ancient who had possessed her too! K-Kind of like your Dina! M-Maybe like her, I-I don't know, but um... the ancient who possessed her had possessed her back when the dinaurians were still in stone sleep, so that one was in her for... for millions of years!_

 _What's a dinaurian!_ squeaks Mistress, _Pippy, what... what even!_

 _I-I promise it's real, I really really promise it's real! They're... They're, um... they're special!_

Pippy goes on attempting to explain his sister-of-Dino and special dye-nau-ree-ans, his words heavy and fleeting and weak, and it becomes palpable that he has not a clue what he is trying to say by the end of it. _Y-Yeah, so, they're cool and... and nice people! And King Dynal is sooooo cool, and his hair is sooooo long, but it's a good long, k-kind of like your hair, Rupert, but waaaay longer, like Jkonna long—_ and of course we have not a clue who this 'Jkonna' fellow is either but he goes on anyways— _and and... sparkly! Y-Yeah, they're kind of... sparkles! I-I-I..._ he cries, _I-I like sparkles!_

At some point he recomposes himself. And then all is soft and gentle and quiet again.

So I lift my head. Slowly, gently, my eyed lidded with tire, I lift my head. The eyes of the vivosaurs, vibrant purple and red, flit right upon me, and I watch as my Mistress jolts to place and jolts toward me and winces and cries and tries to near me and then inches back; and Pippy stays in place and he shakes his head and turns around and shakes quietly.

The tears are small, but I feel them. I feel them and it hurts where the salt runs over the ugly line in my face, and it hurts where they plip and melt into my clothes, and it hurts feeling them stay there, and feeling them without leave. I lift the sleeve of my undershirt and hastily wipe at my eyes, my face burning, but there it is, and there they go.

 _Why can't I?_ I suck in a breath without need to. _Why am I not strong enough to take down possible megayears... why is... why can't my love for her be strong enough? Why can_ I _not be strong enough..?_

I put my head back into my knees and I let it stay there, my arms wrapped tight about me, squeezing into my very being.

Pathetic. I know. Sad, sad, sad and pathetic. Despicable. Sickening. Call me as I must be called. I love her... I love her so much... oh, may she save me, I love her so much... But, oh... no, that is not right: _she_ is the one in need of saving this time. And here I am: pathetic, sad, sad, sad and pathetic, despicable, sickening. Here I am.

The one thing I could possibly ask for in life... and here I am. Swallowing weakly, my fingers pluck from wherever they were and whip at the tears, try to rub them out of sight. Of course my eyes are rimmed in red, a blaring reminder, but it is as much as I can do.

Once, some few weeks ago... the nomadistinians thought it better if they keep Dina locked up somewhere. Yes. Yes, back when she was here, back when the nightmares began to flip into reality, back when things... began to slope downward. The ancients began to come too. And I found one, I found one and I asked him to bless me with his power, and he did... and I burst down the bloody door that held her out of my reach... and I hurt her. I hurt her badly with that blinding sensation, that blinding... monster... the monster I myself let inside of me.

I miss you. I miss you, Dina.  
But of course... right?  
Dina... do you miss me?

Taking in a breath, my body shaking, I shake my head and try to face the world in front of me again. And then—oh, no—there it is—there _he_ is—those big brown eyes—that smiling face—the bow in his hair—the dress loping about him—that _smiling face—_ there he is.

"T-Todd," I manage, cradling my lips with a hand.

And what does he do? Oh, his smile enlarges, as if to encompass me. "Ruuupykiiiiins! Wow, you are not in the best of shapes! Wowwwwwww! Wow, you're all like, like, 'man, today sucks', am I right or am I right? Or maybe not, maybe you're just mad at me again—haaaaa, like you have a reason to be mad at _m—_ "

"Todd," I rasp, and his voice tapers, "Todd, what have you been doing?" I stare at him, a little unbelieving, a little weak, and all he does is smile again.

"Aaaaah, I've been nowhere." Oh. "Yep." The jubilant, warm, muddled voice goes on. "Yeeaaaaah. Just a mess I guess. Yeah, lots of messes. Man! Rupy, have you _noticed_ all the ancients here? It's... freaky! Like... really freak—oohhhh that's right Dina's possessed by one that means of course you freaking know haaaa—I _totally_ knew that." Silent again. Squeaking, but I can tell he is just trying to hold back some burst of fits and childish giggles. What he finds funny I cannot begin to define.

My hand I let fall as my initial shock rescinds, and I merely look into the brown-eyed boy. The cheeky grin, the freckles practically jumping on his moving face, the hope. Y-Yes, that. I go on: "Why are... you here, exactly..?"

Those eyes shift and stay on me; the grin is overwhelming. "Awwww! Rupy, why the heck wouldn't I be here?" I decide not to mention that he made no known efforts prior to this. "You know it's practically my job!" I decide not to tell him that he was not there when it all began. "I gotta do this! It's, like... it's my destiny!" That it was not his "job", so he says. "Dina's got us, right? So we gotta band together and... and take it down and stuff!" That this was... that he was... that I... _I_...

But what made me appropriate myself? And there it is, my weak little smile, the one I keep behind closed doors and struggle not to acknowledge. Upon its short stay, Todd loses focus on my eyes. His face heats—he squeaks, "Whoa! Lookit you!" so I turn away again.

I was never... much for conversation. It was easier to shove aside those who sought me, to lock myself in, to keep themselves out. And... simply, there are... not all that many lives I wish to acquaint myself with as it is. Since when was I not strong enough..? Since when did I, alone, be shifted into lower stature? And why? And why...

Pippy pipes, eyes wide, _Oh, Rupert, I wonder why, too! I wonder why all the time! But... But I guess I never figure anything out, h-heh. But... But maybe this Todd fellow of ours knows why! I think he might... know why. He seems the type, yes?_ He catches my avoiding eye. _No? No..? But how so? He seems like a jolly good fellow to me! Oh... oh! Like Dino! Yes, just like Dino! I-I do love boys like you who remind me of him! Oh, lovely little laddies!_ And on he goes, his worrisome blather without a terminal end in sight.

So Todd intervenes. His skirts _swoosh_ with the motion, as he cries, "Yes, yes! Yessss! Rupy, I love your new vivosaur!" Oh. "She gets it! She totally gets it!" Oh. "She knows me and she knows everything else and she is sooooooooo cute, oh my goodness!" Oh dear.

And with that, the addressed seismo stumbles—squeaking—out the door in a shape of shock. Todd watches, some amount of interest present, until he looks back at the chamber and loses it again. "Anyways, what's the plan! What we gonna do! We got a plan, right? We gonna charge in there? That's fine too. I am so ready."

 _Todd—_ Mistress tries—

"Yeeaaaaah! We'll pummel everything! And the ancients! Take back the castle, right? Yeah!"

 _Todd, please—_ she tries again—

"It'll be aaaweso—"

I pronounce one woozy step out of my chair and push a hand into that hyper boy's shoulder. Much sooner than I predicted and much sooner than I would have liked I feel the strength I had tried to preserve failing me, and then it is Todd alone who upholds me from a spill upon the chamber floor. "Would you cease?" I mutter, thickly, and he does.

 _Rupert... didn't sustain much damage from our attempt, dearie._ With his truncate, the words of my heavyhearted mapo queen arise. _Because, ah, Pippy did for him. That is... how we found him: the act our Rupert committed reminded him so much of his old fighter that he felt compelled to act, and he did. Most... certainly saved his life._

Todd makes no intention of speaking again. He blinks. He breathes. Heavy breaths, eyes closed. Then, quietly, "Oh." Just oh. Lips formed into the shape of a soft oh. "O-Okay then..." He shifts backward.

I take in his demure state only to feel a small pinch of pity. "It is alright." I feel on some deep level my fingers cupping my cheek, tracing the line I came out of my tussle with. "There are no plans, Todd," in case he had yet to decipher what Mistress told him. "I, ah... I have none. No... ideas. Nothing... really..." And is that naught but the truth?

As our thoughts quiet, Pippy and my other vivosaurs finally unearth from the hallway outside. Gyntis carries a small half-grin as if to suggest I should feel pride for their accomplishment—finding Todd—although his is a frown in comparison to what a certain krona has for me. I continue to duly ignore the lot of them and instead draw the vast majority of my attention onto Todd, who squirms at this, face heating again.

But I know my priorities: Camri is not one of them, nor shall he be in the foreseeable future.

Truly, I have yet to reach out and... know any of the people in this room. Even Mistress I distance myself from—is that sad? I used to wonder if so. Is it pitiful or protection? I do not know. But I do know that, were any of the creatures around me found of such caliber, I would... have to take those steps toward them. And, feeling my shaking hands, feeling my weakening stature awkwardly pull against this boy, I fret that if I am not careful... I will be hurt again. And I... would rather avoid such an ending.

Pitiful? Protection?

It is not my say.

Gently I raise. I release my restraint upon Todd's shoulder and render myself backward, to which I stay, head swimming.

And it is here that we hear the blades sluicing the chill in the air. Puttering of an engine, weakly stirring something in my heart that I frantically shove back down and press a cold hand to a burning forehead and wait, wait, wait. Nearby a plume of snow erupts and a monster of a vehicle arises from its place, camouflage paint wavering. Gold, a gold helicopter.

 _Puuhpuuhpuuhpuuhpuuhpuuhpuuhpuuh..._

Mistress yelps. _Rupert. Rupert! D-Do you know what this means?_

 _N-No?_ My face crumples. _What... What is it?_ A strange trill in her voice throws me off of my own worries, as she knows who owns that helicopter, and she knows who will show himself soon. Does she not?

 _Rupert, Rupert! Listen to me! There are_ lots _of people on that helicopter—more than just one single stupid man!_ What is she getting at..? I try to focus but I try to stifle my fear at the same time and it collides as a sickening, wet conglomeration in my stomach. _C-Come on! You can't forget about him! You will not forget about him!_

Oh. Oh no. Another one.

Todd catches this or some other leading idea in Mistress's head and whispers, stepping toward me, "Who's Luk?"

"Nobody," I stutter a little too quickly.

"Oooooooooh! Ooh ooh oooooooh!" And then I feel him jumping on the posh floor. "Luk's in there, isn't... isn't... HE! THAT'S IT! ISN'T THIS LUK FELLOW INSIDE OF THAT HELICOPTER!"

I feel my heart collapse in me. "He... might be, I cannot say for sure. My father may have taken another servant or so without including him in his ranks." And Mistress gives me this look, this grisly, pointed stare, one suggesting I get on with it already, and I mumble, defeated, "He is most likely on the helicopter."

Luk nears in annoyance to the blob of unspent energy that is this curly-haired... fop. But Luk may be worse: then again, I have known Luk for nearing my entire life, so as far as I know, Todd is just as... unlawful as he can be. Two fops now, mmh? No, Luk is certainly on that helicopter; he had this foppish idea that involved following me around, like a constant reminder of this _childlike creature_ would encourage me to spill my deepest secrets all for him to soak in. But even so, despite my indifference, there he is: again.

Well. It would be further beneficial if he was with us than whatever it is my... my father supports. Why he is here I can only wonder at... but perhaps he caught word of the ancients as well. The ancients... I believe the amount of excess energy Dina ceaselessly fed to the one who possessed her has... awakened some form of their hunger. Perhaps.

My head breaks into a short round of pangs. I press cold fingers into where it hurts, which does nothing but make me feel even the slightest less powerful than I already knew I wasn't.

"So." Todd again. I flinch back and stare at him. With a swallow, he continues, his high-pitched tone dwindling. "Umm... Are we gonna go find him before... before stuff happens?" Oh. That is right. We have a bit of a time restraint, do we not? I fear if... my father... finds our existence quickly enough he may as well pluck us like staggering weeds. Ah... Shaking my head—I stop, then I nod.

"We should go."

With a grim smile, I turn, and I stop, and I ask Mistress to come a little closer. Her side becomes my railing: I search out my boots, my two extra layers, and only once I have prepared myself accordingly do I ask the royal vivosaur to lower herself ever so lower, so that I may climb upon her.

If I walk myself, I will fall again. My forehead throbs in sympathy and that staircase flashes to mind. I shake my head. Todd, giggling, I hear follow up behind me, and I almost tell him to ride his own vivosaur but the melancholy in his laugh restrains the words in my throat: and then there he is, and telling him to get off now would only waste more time.

I close my eyes, a wordless groan inside of me. Luk. _Luk_. Todd _and_ Luk, soon to be. Oh, goodness...

And finally. Out the door, out the hallways, smashing through any my mapo queen finds trivial, my small entourage of other vivosaurs following—Camri, I note, has to stoop to enter, although he is not alone in this and poor Pippy is panting at the back. Todd does not try and touch me, merely tucks his hands into the folds of her scales, but he speaks. Sometimes. Quietly, words a whisper in the wind so quiet I nearly miss them, and I think I do miss more than I receive.

"I miss her too, y'know. Heh..." and "She means a lot to me. She's... so weak" and "I got to protect her" and "You're not alone. I-I mean... maybe you want to be, maybe that's why you are how you are, but" and I never catch how he ends that last sentence, but it leaves me stung. My eyes closed, I await whatever shall come to us: desolation or indifference.

My heart beats hard in my chest. As we approach the inevitable frost outdoors I take in gentle, slow breaths: the air crisp, tender. My fingers encircle the neck of my vivosaur. The gloves rub against her scales, and I watch the material bunch and pull apart for a moment, shaking my head, facing forward, eyes open and wide. Ready, I admit, ready to find that servant-boy and take him... alongside me again. He was my servant, most specifically, when I still lived under the reign of my father, when I still lived in his mansion. Luk tried tirelessly to converse with me, and he made up his own answers to his question when I was unrelenting—and I was almost always unrelenting. I never thought I would feel this... gratitude... at these actions of his. I shake my head again, fingers taut. Eyes forward, snow barreling in icy flurries about us, my cheeks sting, my eyes water, my nose... itches.

But there in the shade of the gilded helicopter, oh, just ahead, do I spot the stirring of the servants, as they have pulled on their layers of clothing and have exited and two of them line up toward the door to pull open for my... father to exit. Still on the side, seeing and acknowledging us, there is the blue-haired boy, and I understand and accept what I have done.

Mistress halts toward the back. Luk has his goggles on—his ugly, handmade goggles, the red material sagging at the edges—his refined clothing—courtesy of the vast majority of mine, as I hardly touched it—the unbearable smile quivering as he reaches us. With a dive for my mapo queen, he nearly flops into the snow were it not for her hand reaching out, pulling him upwards, leaving only Todd and myself to bring him on.

He is taller than me. And Todd, too—but Todd is shorter than I am so it is to be expected. His unbearable grin has yet to cease. His hair, spiny and... long, fluctuates from over-his-eyes to yanked-back by the fingers of frosty wind. And his voice—while suitably lower than Todd's—contains a hint of nobility that is backlashed in multiple sequences by his unrelenting jolly.

"Rupert! Duuuude! I-I... t-tihh... gggh! I totally saw that coming!" No. No he didn't. I think his goggles are fogging—and are those... No, he is not crying, there is... no sense in tears. Not over something as insignificant as this. "And... And you brought a..! A... A..." Pointing, almost speechless at the boy in the dress beside me. Then he cries, "A FRIEND!" My face heats accordingly and from then on I ignore him.

"Awwww! I think you're making Ruuupykins bluuuush," states Todd, giggling, "yeah, he's toooootally blooooooshing, kahaha..."

"Well it's his fault for being an emotional li'l... did you call him... Rupykins?" Pause. "Oh dear ancients above and below that is your new name." One of his hands catches my shoulder and I rip it back from him. I ask him "Would you cease?" and he does.

Has it not always been in such a way? I hear them giggling about mindless frivolities behind me, Luk situating himself beside his new friend, and I wonder... is it not usually? My voice... something of it... perhaps its single use being to merely order about servants for however many years, but something of it snaps them to attention, and they listen. Something of it... useful, but unnerving. Yes. And but of course my thoughts go to Dina, and I worry for her...

So in the midst of our unrelenting attention spans... we miss our window of escape, if we even had one in the first place: Mistress is not an easy sight to miss. Perhaps coming out at all truncated our going back, but either way when I look up again I note the... the thing standing in front of her, the aviators shielding his face from what he would call the _filth_ of the world, dressed in smart clothes only _fitting_ for he, his smile lean and _fake_. And I lose my real smile and shake my head but he is still there: _Father_.

Something akin to fear climbs up in my throat. My stinging eyes—stop, stop, stop. Luk and Todd look down and see the man and Luk is stone and Todd glances between the both of us and winces, oh, because then it all makes sense.

"Your dad's ugly," he whispers. Nobody responds.

I am not completely sure what he meant by the comment: while beginning to age, my... father still holds a number of youthful aspects. His hair he keeps cropped to his head, his face stern, those glasses flashing the pathetic sight of three boys huddled over a mapo queen. His hands go into his pockets and he calls, casually, as if he had been waiting for this moment, "Son.

I decide to unearth a small hole inside of me. "Son, what are you doing with yourself?" The small hole used to be much larger than it is today, but I have filled it with so many things that it seems to have shrunken from a sea to but puddles. "Son, this isn't where you belong: this isn't you." Inside of the hole are little pieces of things: when he told me the world was empty, when he yelled at me to get back up... "Son, I know what you need." When he killed my mother. "You need to go back to the mansion where you belong." When he met... Dina... for the first time. "Nicer there than out here in the element, innit?" When... he realized... that I fancied her... and he told me she was... told me she was... she was... "Oh, come now: don't you miss it?

She was... just another whore.

"What is that on your face, Son?"

I said nothing, and I say nothing, and I will say nothing and it does not matter what he says in return. I stand at the pit of the hole I began to dig as but a child, and I look at my shovel and I think about it, I think about finally... But these memories... are still so strong, so I bury them again. But there will come a day... I-I want to believe there will come a day... when they weaken.

Sometimes I... I genuinely feel the need to kill him.

 _RU-RUPERT! THAT IS A LITTLE MUCH, W-WOULDN'T YOU SAY, DEARIE?_

 _Actually I am one hundred and ten percent with Rupert we should totally kill hi—_

 _LUK! OH, DEARIE, NOT YOU TOO!_

 _Well if you're both talking about killing him I might as well talk about killing him too ri—_

 _OH, THE THREE OF YOU ARE RUTHLESS!_

I think she yells to drown out the pain in her own heart. Whatever shape it may be in, whatever form it may take, she would rather hide it as well. But... I understand that—I know that feeling, I know it very well. Acquainted... with that shame.

 _Alright,_ I murmur, and everyone hushes, _we will not kill him._ Luk and Todd groan and my mapo queen sags of relief. _But please understand... anything that happens next, no matter how it shall end... is alright._ I know, I just know inside of me, that this will not end well. I already see his fingers fish for the medals in his pocket, and I watch him silently count as he unearths them, and I watch them spiral like droplets into the air and materialize.

Mistress, us atop her, rears forward. Pippy, nervous but ready, steps in front of her, and a startled Tessa hurries after—her eyes worriedly follow the seismo. Camri is next, and he is smiling as if he will not assent to Mistress's wish, and after him follows Gyntis. Finally Sunny.

And then Todd's fingers go to his pockets, and he pulls out his small trio of air vivosaurs. One by one, nailing the snow: his spiny Gren, a lush green stego; the much spinier Flower, a bruise-colored goyle; and Eddy, the edapho, his green coloration the single difference from how Torn himself appears.

Luk excitedly asks me if he can take command over the krona and I graciously accept. He and Todd slide off of Mistress's back in search of however this will start, however this will go, and I take in a breath as I watch the colossal-sized creatures my father revived himself arouse from the snow.

No. I am not trying to win.

But... a diversion would be useful...

Hmm... I allow myself a moment of wonder, never having speculated I would reach this far. Friend, Luk called Todd... friend, Luk calls me, I know... Is that so strange? It is supposed to feel so foreign, seeing faces, feeling smiles... warmth? Ah, but it is so chilly already in Nomadistan... I doubt such a trivial warmth could reach very far... but what do I know?

I watch the two of them, foppish and sprinting, in search of how to start this off without too much of a kink, as my father struggles to reign in his own seismo.

Oh, what do I know?

 **What does he know? Hahaha, that's a funny question.**

 **So it looks like Rupy got himself into a battle! oh nuohhh, hahahaha. He's not that confidant xD But we'll see what that leads to, heh.**


	6. Da: The Empty Heart

**Dina: Nn-Nnng...**

 **Me: and she's back! Buh buhhh**

 **Dina: M-Mmh... I am afraid...**

 **Torn: -Baaaaah, don't be.-**

 **Dina: -lifts head a little- T-Torn?**

 **Torn: -I'll kill the shit out of anyone who even looks at you wrong. It's all good.-**

 **Dina: But what if—**

 **Torn: -I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT-**

 **Dina: … ovo**

 **Torn: -I HAVE NEVER NEVER EVER FUCKING LOST TO FUCKING ANYONE-**

 **Dina: ...o-oka—**

 **Torn: -I AM THE HARBINGER OF YOUR PRO-FUCKING-TECTION-**

 **Trikko: smirks -You keep telling yourself that.-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 6: The Empty Heart

 _Dina_

Not long after, another memorable face arises. Upon sight, Reyna flinches, as if to turn back from the creature, but Nyra cries out happily and Torn allows himself a bemused smirk. With the krypto out of his general premise, he has yet to see her—our newcomer—and dashes off to the blue-scaled dimetro with a great smile overwhelming his tiny face. _Torny! Torny! Torny!_ And he pauses. His gaze streaks along the nycto ace behind him, and upon me as well. I feel myself reciprocate his little grin, and I step up to him. _And you're... ohhhhhh no... Oh no! No! This is bad! I-I-I know you but I don't know you!_ The pule hidden under his throat arises too, and he curls into himself, head shaking. _REY-REYYYYY! WHERE ARE YOUUUUUU!_

She has yet to stir from behind me, but her flinch touches me. I raise my head but she refuses to look down: those dark, blood-red eyes of hers fixate into nearby nothingness. Wincing, I whisper, _Reyna..?_ although this provides me with less response than prior.

Finally she summons a breath. With this breath she propels herself forward, and with this forward step she pushes her form into a smaller stature and situates herself in front of the lost-looking vivosaur. _Hello, Aladee_ , she murmurs, voice incisive, and goes on. _The idiot in blue is our friend Torn. Our uppity little winged lady is Nyra. And of course—_ turning—t-to me— _how can we forget Dina. So. There you go._

It is with her flint-like annoyance that she directs little Aladee around, and soon after cursory introductions that leave him reeling she returns to her natural height, a powerful wave of condescension stifling from her frigid posture. I swallow. _Reyna_ , I try again, receiving no pretense of her having heard my voice.

I feel my head lower, but it is hard to tell with a sight as weak and as shaded as this one.

 _A-Alright then, Reyna_. My nycto ace huffs; her feathery composure thickens with the shake of the angular head. Her green body pulls together, and she situates herself beside the shaky raja. _Aladee! You're our friend! You remember us, surely? Heh... With you, we only have one left, and we'll all be here..! I know that it's a little scary, but I'm sure we'll figure it out, yes?_ Her head lowers to meet his height.

Aladee sucks in the greatest breath his lungs can hold. When he exhales he goes for another attempt to meet the averted gaze of the krypto above him. Then his head drops too, and Nyra has to stoop once more. _Rey-Rey..._ A whisper, like a promise. _Rey-Rey..! Hmmnng!_ A broken promise.

 _I, um..._ Nyra coughs. _You know Reyna's always been a... little moody. She's... you know how she is, Aladee, don't you? You know how she gets..._ Rising above him, she offers a glare of her own back. Reyna still pays no heed and the nycto ace scoffs softly.

 _Yeah, she's quite the bitch._

And then there is Torn. My lips twist and I cover my face, giggling.

 _See! See, guys! Dina gets it! Dina fucking gets it!_

Nyra snorts. _Oh, Torn..._ She rolls her eyes. _Well... I guess we should keep going now?_

 _No, um... um..._ I try again. _Aladee... I am happy that you are back—really... n-now we just have Trikko, if you remember Trikko... umm... But I—Before that..._ Memories... missing memories... little holes in our heads—m-maybe he remembers something... _Aladee, is there anything you can, um, tell us ab-about the past? Before... here? Before... a-all of this?_

Pieces, bread crumbs starting a path: Torn and I have been in a dark and dire situation, far before this one. The monstrous red-eyed face of the girl with the black hair, the one Reyna conjured. And... the Missing inside of me... a strange emptiness even... dare I say, even stronger than the emptiness all of my other gaping holes create.

 _Y-Yeah! Yeah!_ Aladee is jumping. _Aladee remembers things! All kinds of things! Aladee remembers... remembers the sun! And the sky, and a warm day! And the day was warm but... oh._ He lowers himself.

 _A-Aladee?_ I squeak.

 _There was another fighter. Before you. I had another fighter. Do you remember that? Another fighter. He was... nnh—not nice, not nice fighter. Didn't... treat... his vivosaurs well. Kept us in our medals. N-No big deal... but... ugly words. Big ugly words. He spoke in big, big ugly words. Not fun, no... not fun. So he dropped me once and I stayed quiet, really quiet, and that was that. But!_ His voice elevates with a returning bounce to his feet. _But then Din-Din almost stepped on my medal, and Din-Din found me, and Din-Din was nice!_

Torn bounces after him. _Shit, Aladee! Dina's not nice! She's... She's... fuck, I had a great word and I lost it. Uhhhhh, she's really fucking nice! HAH! FUCK YOU, SHIT MEMORIES! I GOT THIS!_

 _Torny, Torny! Torny's nice too!_

My dimetro ceases bouncing. _What the hell? I mean, sure, I keep her from getting walked all over... as much as I can. Uh, but... I mean..._ He pauses. His bluish cheeks heat to a collective purple and he wanders back off to Nyra, who has yet to move, and has yet to turn her eyes away from the ignorant krypto in front of us. Her thin, slender hands come together with a resounding _cahhh_.

 _So... shall we continue?_

I glance warily through the thin stream of light projected by my dimetro. _Is it... wise... to continue, Nyra? I-I know that... there is not much else we can do, outside of forward and... cease, b-but I do not know... I do not know if waiting would be the wiser choice, or actively searching, for Trikko. Mmmh... I-I worry for him..._

 _Fuck, Dina._ A lopsided grin inches into the maw of my dimetro. His quartz eyes glimmer. _You worry for everyone. I bet you worry for... for... Dammit, I hate forgetting. You know! Someone who... someone who.. oh! Oh, right. Todd! I mean—his parents, that is. I bet you fucking worry about the people who spent the majority of your life torturing it. Yeaaaaah._

To which he pauses. _Shit... I'm happy we're not stuck with them anymore. I know none of you guys were there yet, but... like, outside of that... it was a pain in the ass. They were bitches, Dina of course wouldn't do a fucking thing against it... ugh. Now I feel sick. Yeah, sorry. Ulhhhhhg._ His eyes cross for a moment, hovering, until he closes them. A strange sense of tenderness comes awash me as I watch him. In acknowledgment, his tail lazily flicks.

Nyra titters her agreement, her violet eyes like little flames in her head. _I think we're all relieved about the cease of certain events, mmh? Cease, cease... What else are we missing? Oh, I feel so close and yet so far at the same time... This is going to drive me crazy, feeling it hang over my head... nnnh..._

Smiling weakly, Aladee nods.

 _Pshhh. Well. Dina and I've been doing this shit for I don't even know how long, so, uh... join in on the fun?_ Torn pauses, melancholic. _Ah, this isn't fucking fun. Ignore me. I'm still pissed._

 _W-Well_ , Nyra counters, _I-I am too, a little bit!_ causing Torn to giggle.

Aladee chimes in. _Me three! Aladee's super pisse—_

 _Aladee._ Our voices slam into our throats as Reyna herself announces her presence. _Don't use those words. I'd rather you didn't come out like Torn._ Snort. _And he really isn't nice, so you can stop with that. It's... nice of_ you _, but Torn... well, there are words in his vocabulary that would suit him better than those in mine._

I wince; Aladee shrieks. _REY-REEYYYYYYYYYYY!_ Then he halts. _But... But Rey-Rey... Torny is cool!_

We heed no response.

And then there is another voice.

 _You know, Aladee, I think you should listen to our krypto friend for this one: Torn is an awful influence... but... hmmm... but I suppose Dina is too... How about Nyra? She's the most balanced out of us._

Silence again. The semi-darkness lit in blue defines edges of blackness brushing up against our bubble, but I see no figure, find no silhouette of the bearer of the deep, monotonous voice. But I know—my heart beats painfully—I know. So I dash off through the blue again without much direction in mind—only I do not see him—and I nearly crash into the large, black mass making up Reyna—and then another creature stops in front of me and waits, patiently, cyan orbs twinkling.

I breathe in. My exhale hits him: _Tri—Trikko! Trikkooooooo!_ Boundless, I leap into his side and wrap my arms around one of his stubby legs, and my head tilts into his chest, and I breathe in his soft scent... when I realize... a coil hidden into his Trikko musk... a tiny sliver of it... something... oh, something... my mind stirs but the thoughts inside of it do not amount to enough to determine what it—no, _who_ it is that Trikko saw before his coming... but I feel it, I feel it somewhere in me and I almost want to cry with how close I am... ohh...

Nyra quickly swoops in, patting his head with one of her long, sleek wings. _Thank you very much for your flattery, but are you really sure about that, Trikko? I can be a bit... strict at times. But... But I'm so soft-spoken too..._

 _Oh come on. Nyra, what is the one thing there is to know about me?_ Trikko grins. _The facts. You know this, Nyra. Logic is my code. And let me tell you, by judging your aptitude... that yes, maybe you are a poorly-placed creature both holding and wanting to use good leadership qualities while at the same time too weak to properly utilize them. But look around, Nyra. You have an overly-gentle pushover, our moody krypto whose name I seem to be missing, the tiny, hyper raja, my deadpanning self, and... well._ He merely gives a look in the general direction of my fast-approaching dimetro and Nyra giggles.

 _You have a point._

Whatever it is Torn attempts to say through gasping breaths, his dear friend halts him with another look. _Wait—Everyone, wait._ Even Reyna, from behind him, falters accordingly. _I have something important to—Auh, darn... the barriers between these crisscrossing—what are these, dimensions of the sort?—consciousness, maybe?—anyways, these barriers are... powerful. Ugh. I'm losing it... losing—Torn, please supply one of your various colorful vocabulary words._

 _Shit?_ he squeaks.

Trikko shakes his head. The annoyance in his face burns with lines up his forehead, streaking his red-and-blue hide, coloring his face a shade of purple. _Yes. That. Multiply that tenfold._ His concentration falters, and the soft blue eyes find mine. _Dina... I'm sorry. I had something... so important... to tell you. Seriously. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I promise that—while I can't promise the contents of my message—I do know that... something meaningful of yours was... was... was there. Urrh..._ Concentration returns, his head bending to the weight of his thoughts. _I... I swear, it was just there... and... Ugh, it would've made you smile, I'm sure of it..._ An oddly serene expression drifts across him. _But there it goes._

 _S-Smile..?_ My fingers jump to my lips. I think... I think he knew what my Missing was, or... um, _who_ my Missing is, but before he could tell me... ohh... _T-Trikko... Th-Thank you, Trikko, Th-Thank you so..._ Small hiccups burst out of my lips before I pop them, and I stand there, bending slightly, my hands slowly shrouding my face.

Trikko rests his head—gently, carefully—over mine. _Mmmh. Of course. It's just as Torn says, although lacking a kinder tone: you're too nice. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, so long as there's somebody else willing to cover up your... sore spots. And... isn't that what we're here for? I'm just... sorry I couldn't offer your a name. If nothing else... not even a name—or an image, for that matter._

 _Nn... B-But you tried_ , I murmur, pulling my hands from my face, resting them on his foreleg. _You tried... and that is very... thoughtful of you... Trikko. S-So thank you. And, um, a-also..._ I lean into him. _Also... there is... a very faint smell... on your leg._

He snorts. _There is? Well. I'm not going to ruin your little soiree with my foreleg if it happens to hold some part of them. If there's any hope, right? Heh. You're a little annoying when it comes to that... aren't you?_ But his voice is feather-soft, hopeful-soft, and he leaves me be to turn back to the other vivosaurs. The lulls in his tone keep me captivated, so I listen too to the pulls and the pushes of wave-like soothe.

 _Maybe it's because I left last. I don't know. But I've... retained quite a bit of information. And the more I think about it... well, I haven't lost any after my passing of consciousness. I think there was a sort of disruption when we passed through to where Dina is—she was basically as blank as you can go, and then you, Torn... And I'm not sure of the order for the rest of you, but it might work in that sort of harmony. Of course, I can't remember our krypto friend's name, but there are other things I'm not missing._

 _Reyna,_ she mutters, huffy.

He goes on as if he did not hear her. _Yes, that._ But I know Trikko is not one to miss valuable information. Does he... tease? _So. Moving along. We're all here again. Perhaps now we should start with an aggregation of information, assuming you have any?_

 _Each other's name_ s _,_ offers Torn. _We've got names. And outside of names, uh... memories of each other. Maybe not all of them but I know a few key things._ Pause. _Like that you're a stuck-up ass._ Nyra winces; Trikko snorts.

 _Thank you, Torn, for reminding me that I have a rear end._

A second wince, and Nyra steers the conversation into another direction. _Aaaanyways... That's true, Torn. We remember each other... or at least the bare structure of... us. Heh, yes. And we have a few dates, but not all that much, so don't get your hopes too high._ She pauses in recollection. _Torn and Dina living underneath Todd and his foster parents' roof for some amount of years—very, um, vile foster parents—and they suffered from amnesia before then. But... she and Todd left... eventually. And she found us... eventually._

 _Hurican,_ provides Trikko in a whisper. _Their last name is Hurican. Todd Hurican. Mister and Missis Hurican. Not exactly something you'd want to remember, but there you go._ Pausing, taking in a breath.

Nyra goes on, her eyes lighting. _Y-Yes, I... I sort of recall that? We didn't talk much of it, now that I reflect... But... um. Oh! We know that Aladee had a crude fossil fighter before we found him. And... And we know that this isn't home. Also! Also a face. A face Reyna saw... and that's it._

Quiet for a time.

Then there is the chuckling. Low-voiced, compassionate chuckling. _Oh, you poor people. You must be so lost. I'll warn you now that I don't know everything, but I think I can supply enough to help us get by._

 _Get by!_ squeaks Aladee. _Trikky will help us get by!_

A final little chuckle before he goes on. _Alright... let's start from where I first remember things. I... well, I must say that Aladee is the single surviving member of how he came to be, revival or... prior. So, uh... good for him._ Deep breath. Gathering his thoughts. I bury my head into his warmth. _We... We were a group. A pretty fearsome group, if I do say so myself. Dina revived us... from fossils... in a place called... bah, I can't remember the name. Todd was there, and a few others—and someone important—but for the life of me I can't recall any of that. Anyways, we fought other vivosaurs—and we usually won, but not at first. Psh. No, not at first..._

 _There was... something about those days... that is just... just on the tip of my tongue..._ His head lifts from his hunched body. I feel a shiver slide down his length, slow and thorough. _I think it won't come back to me. Not unless... I leave. Then it might. But trapped in here... these pieces will keep being pieces. Dina, Torn... I can safely say I know what it feels like to be an amnesiac, and I can safely add that I do not want to be in this position again as much as I can help it. But I will... for all of you. Heh, oh goodness, that was unbearable to hear my voice say._

Nyra smiles weakly. _Yes, um..._ The light in her violet eyes burns brightly, but her shoulders pull together. Her own wrinkles form at the top of her head. _Trikko..? What do you mean? About the barriers—about 'coming' here? All we know, precisely, is that we don't belong here. That's... That's it._

 _Oh, right._ He snorts. _That's easy._

 _My... friends?_ Our eyes raise. His head shifts to accompany my joining. _We came of our own will... because... ah, you see..._ I feel those sky-blue eyes return to me: my head, where it rests upon him; my fingers tight into his scales; my orange hair a thick mass around my head; my eyes big, and a milky violent—nervous, weak... hopeful. I see him watching me in his head, and I see his next words falter as he watches. A swallow, a nervous turn of the head, a soft cough, a sigh—resignation digs into his slumped shoulders.

 _Because Dina was—_

 _OWW FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCKETY—GHHHHHGGGGH!_

I start, lurching off of Trikko and into the eyes of my frantic dimetro, who has begun rolling on the floor beneath us. White sand-like particles shred with his motions and big quarts eyes register screeching pain and there is a strange black mark leering into his body, and he is in pain, he is in agonizing pain.

 _T-Torn! Torn, Torn..! Aah..!_

I land on my knees in front of him. My hands caress his cheek as he lies there, his breaths hot and short and streaming over me in waves. Those scrunched eyes peel back with his head, neck craned to catch a glimpse of his wound, but he does not, so I push the memory toward him. When he sees what I do, he hisses through his teeth; his forked tongue emerges with a lash.

The great beat of wings sends plumes of air toward us, my hair emerging in knot along my face: I push it back to take in my dimetro, and I wish, I wish I could do something to ease his pain... As Aladee leaps and tears into whatever took him down, I recall medals... but something tells me that this is a... a different wound, and something else gives me reason to feel that... maybe in this world there is no medal for him to revert into.

My head ducks, and I bite my lip. None of my vivosaurs ever had healing assets... some could support others with defensive boosts or strength boosts or the like but... but... bhh...

When Nyra flings her great wings, _fhhhump, fhhhump,_ she sends cascades of currents into the invader. When Aladee latches upon it, I can feel in the back of my mind his sore jaws taking in chunks of flesh. When Trikko marches into the face of the enemy and rams his horned face into them, he penetrates barriers that only prove how much he has hurt who hurt Torn by the retaliation that flanks his side and crushes mine. I cry out and pull my dimetro closer into me as his shallow breaths scrape the inside of my lungs.

When Reyna lifts her head into the air, her roar sends my mind thoughtlessly blank in but seconds.

When I regain conscious thought I hug Torn into me again, and I try to tell him I-I am right here, and he can bite m-my hand if it helps him. Hand... Hand... bitten hand—ahhh...

I remember... I remember once... breaking my hand. I-I remember it well. It... hurt. Nothing else... but I remember it... hurt... nnh...

My head lowers into his face and I hold him tightly and my mind is working so hard and everything aches... everything aches so much... The wounds they suffer chip into my soul and... oh... it hurts...

But I continue to hug Torn, weakly, desperately. He is recovering by now, and his breaths have evened, and I realize that the shock blinded him and he is not as pained as we all thought he was... and I sag, my fingers tight around him.

When the fighting ends, I ask, head lifting to my dazed nycto ace, _Wh-What happened?_

She merely shakes her head. _I'm not so sure myself. They... resembled a raptor... and they dissipated when we knocked it to a rather weak point... but it was... it was so s-strange... Ah!_ She starts, pointing as we watch—as we _watch—_ eyes wide—the wound that perpetrated the scales on my dimetro close and knit whole again.

Trikko is by his side immediately. _Torn... Torn, you're okay, right?_ He glances—without thinking—at the area the wound once laid and at the face of my dimetro, and not even his confusion and lack of reasoning can sway the relief flooding him. _Oh, you big wimp,_ he murmurs, laying down beside him, _Oh, you big, wonderful wimp._

Reyna and Aladee near—the latter whimpering—but neither start conversation and neither pledge acknowledgment.

Finally, he sucks in another breath and speaks. _H-Hot damn... that was fucking terrifying._ Shake of the head—shaking body. Weak cough. _That was... sh-shit, that was something. I... Are we all sure that I'm not dead? A-And we're sure I'm not super messed up or... or... Ugh, that freaked me out! Dammit!_ He takes in a breath; then he yells again. _DAMMIT! WHAT THE FUCK!_

 _Torn,_ I whimper, _T-Torn..._ and he goes silent.

 _D-Dammit, Dina... I'm sorry. Don't worry too much. Heh... hhhh..._ His head rests where it fell into my lap. His exhaustion pulls onto me, and I gently pet my dimetro, my fingers shaking enough that I hardly touch him. When Nyra situates herself beside me, I feel a wing play around my side and tuck into me, and I rest by her, my quivers bumping me into her every few moments. She is quiet, and I am quiet, and we breathe. Aladee nuzzles himself down beside us; Reyna is silent, watching.

Swallowing, I whisper, _That was scary._ Then I add, _S-Sorry, Torn_ , but he is too drained to hear me. I continue pretending to pet him.

Nyra murmurs, _Yes, it was. I-I don't blame you. That was... Oh, Torn's right: that was... terrifying. No wonder the shock got to him... I-It would've gotten to me, too. And I saw how your legs buckled like that afterward... Oh, Dina..._ She hugs me tighter, and I pull in closer to her side. Aladee mumbles his agreement without lifting his head—he pants hard, his body battling breaths.

 _Mmmmh..._ Trikko noses himself upward. _That's what... Well, I guess that's what we get, everyone._ So we pause. _You see... Dina. The face, the cruelty, the... ulh, we're missing a piece or two—this accursed memory—but... Dina didn't come her of her own volition. Remember? So Torn followed first... and some of us stayed behind a little longer, either in panic or recollection... but we all eventually followed her. I'm guessing it's in part that we're connected to her and in part that we're vivosaurs we were allowed this sort of... passage of... of consciousness._

 _And, as we can conclude... either they don't want us here, or they brought Dina here to... to, um... you know._ Deep breath. _Kill her, in a sense._

I stop.

Something... something is coming back to me... Yes, oh... Oh, yes, I feel it... I feel the piece shivering inside of me... I see... I see the face Reyna brought to mind—the dark and tangled hair, ruby eyes, piercing pale expression, taut—I see it... and... and... I think there was... a name... N-Nnn... the name is not coming... but I feel a sense of terrifying importance upon her—like, but very unlike, the Missing inside of me.

Kill... me. End... me.

Something... has been inside of me... for a long t—no. No... longer than that... longer... Torn and I and missing memories and my strange scaled body that is not of skin like Todd or the other people I have come to know... And I... I feel... Oh, I feel... a terrifying certainty in my throat that it is not on my side. My side... whatever my side is... it... wants something from me. Wants something...

My fingers go to my forehead and I close my eyes, panting softly.

 _Dina... stop that._ And there she is. Her presence thick and physical, a feeling in my chest, Reyna lowers her great head and her ruby eyes take me in. She is quiet with her wording and she tactfully ignores the retort Nyra throws at her. _We've been over this, haven't we? Calm down. I know. I get it. This is a big deal. I'm not saying that you should pretend it isn't: I'm telling you to understand that as awful as that looked, Torn's body stitched itself back together for him. So he's okay. He'll be okay when the next attack knocks that stupid smirk off his stupid face. Just... don't get so worked up about it. Then you lose function... then you lose_ it. _And losing it,_ she murmurs, eyes lidded, _is a dangerous card to play in our little game._

Before I find my nerve again, she shifts. She faces me no longer, instead fixated on her little point in the void. The blue light, I note, the one brought to me by Torn, has not flickered within all of his situation. There he is, eyes little pink crescents, tongue addressing his lips, and as he raises, the light neither strengthens nor recedes. I let out a little breath: the smile upon me is weak, but it is there, I feel it.

Nyra huffs about the krypto. _Ulh! Dina, why is she so... nnnnnf..!_

 _I—ahh..._ Blushing, I try to go on. _Um... It is okay, Nyra..._

A strange smile overcomes the nycto ace. She shakes her head, and murmurs, _Of course, Dina. Of course... Auhh, Reyna just has this aggravating capability to disagree with opinions so... readily! And then she's so... independent. If we're independent and don't meld together, then we won't be able to take on another wave of... of these things, whatever they are! And if we lose, then... then..._ Wary eyes streak over me, and they tenderly survey the area where the flank of a certain dimetro was scarred just minutes ago. _It's... worrisome, is all. I'm sure she has problems with me too. Torn and Trikko found me dainty for so long and brushed me aside... and I suppose I still have a level of daintiness within me. Hoo..._

 _Nyra?_ I mumble.

 _It's exhausting... worry. Heh._ She shakes her head, eyes rolling. _But I suppose we're alright for now, so I don't need to get so worked up. Ah.. I can't help myself._ A rueful shake of the head, her grin heavy, and she pats my side again. _Well. I guess now we can start moving on again._ With a lift of her wings, she is off.

A question toys on my lips, but... judging her already-strained levels of stress, perhaps I-I should keep it to myself. I was just wondering why we continue to move... if there is nothing left out there for us to find... other than more of the creatures. A-And as quickly as the wound Torn suffered had healed, it still worries me, too... nnnh...

So we go on. Reyna stays as silent as she was prior; Aladee now floats among her levels, his little body—hardly my size, if even—jumping by her side, his voice a constant flood into her ever-withdrawn self. But somehow I find it precious, his squeaks, his trials, even with his understanding that she will not readily respond, he continues. Somewhere inside of me I feel a sad warmth... and I hold onto it.

In the midst of my brooding, Torn approaches. His heated body rubs against mine; his smile, while small, toys a contagious spark. _Soooo. Dina, what'd you get out of your lovely smell soi... soil... soir... ugh, whatever the hell Trikko called it. Did you, uh... Did you learn anything? New thoughts? Stuff..? Uhhhhh... the weird missing thing you're messing with?_

 _H-Heheh..._ I shake my head, while smiling in turn. _No, Torn. Nothing that I can physically supply, heh. I think you will be the first to know, if I ever do... but... um, but nothing right now._ My smile tips toward the earth we trudge through. I can still taste the gentle scent... and I-I... as close as I was to something, anything: a name, a face, a quality—anything—I found no remnant of feeling other than... other than...

 _Home,_ I whisper. _Safe...ty._

He tries the word, wincing. _Safety? The fuck? Home and fucking safety? Dammit, what kind of motherfucker thinks they can keep you safe? I... ugh! Ughhhhhhh..._

 _Torn?_ I squeak.

 _I fucking hate people._ He pauses, allowing the word to resonate. With a spit that drills into the sand he goes on, annoyance lacing his voice. _Yeah! That's... That's fucking right..! I—I... I fucking hate people so much..._ A desperation compels him as he eyes me again, a fragile stare caught in a dangerous hand. _They hurt you. The Huricans hurt you, hurt you fucking awful. And while you won't say a damn word against them—dammit—I... I know. And I know they're... they're so..._ He lifts his head and shakes it hard. _Ungh. Dina... I don't know what wiseass thinks they can make you happy... but I don't trust people. There aren't a lot of gentle ones out there. If there's anything I very well damn know..._ his words lull out into a growl, and he does not cease for some time.

While I remain beside him, my mind runs with the feeling of this... this... safety. Naught but a smell, but a shell of somebody... important, f-for sure... but I feel it in my heart and it holds me in so much it begins to hurt... but I try my best to hold that scent close to me. Maybe... it is but a fragmentation of what once was... but it makes me happy... a happiness I feel only pieces of... but the pieces alone are so... kind.

Who are you..? Who are you, one I found so... so _important_ to me before everything, so _precious_ to me, so _significant_ that it hurts to feel this absence inside of me? Like a gentle veil, the safety attempts to hold me, but with only pieces I feel I must be missing so much of a somebody who meant oh, so much to me prior to my second loss of my memories.

No. No, that is not true.

Even after I lost my memories, just these pieces tell me enough to let me know that they still mean... i-if I could... the _world._.. to me.

Lost in my thoughts, I very nearly miss the pattern of footprints in the soil about us. My heart jolts in my chest and I stop, pressing my lips tight together, and I wait, and I wait as the sound returns.

 _pa-dumm pa-dumm pa-dumm pa-dumm pa-dumm_

With my cease, Reyna follows. Her dark talons draw into soil and she releases a retort under her breath. With her cease halts Aladee, who falls to a stubborn halt with a squeak in his throat. _U-Ummmmhh! What's that! What's that!_ And with his cry, the others come back over to flank us.

 _Ahhhh, shit_ , goes Torn; then, _Well I guess this is my turn to show them I'm not just a piece of shit. Haaaahhh..._

 _You keep telling yourself that,_ Trikko murmurs, and his best friend slaps his tail against him. _Ohh, fuck you too._

A sluice of air slams at us—and behind us, a dark-eyed creature of mid-sized stature and flabby, purple skin. I pause as Torn leaps in front of me and I remember with a gasp: _O-Oh! Oh..! I can... um... I can..! Nnn..!_ I pull my hands up to my chest and I am not sure how, exactly, it works, but I can feel my body emanate with a light and my limbs extend and torso stretch and canines rip into carnal points inside of me, and the intensity of power causes me to buckle over in a wave of shivers.

My tail whips out beside me; I slowly, carefully lift myself to my hind legs and extend shimmering white talons in front of me. Aladee, now feet shorter than me, squeals when he turns: _DIN-DIN DID A THING!_

 _I-I... um,_ I splutter, shifting in place, _battle... battle form. That is what this—_

In the midst of my very unfocused proposition, a claw shreds across my cheek and blinding black stars crozzle my vision and a lurched cry shreds out of me as I jump at the thing and land on it and tear into it with all of my ability to: but my fingers—er, talons—oh, shaking, like with Torn, just manage to divert.

A well-placed kick, and I go sailing far outside of the blue bubble of light. A soft moan releases from my sore maw. I try to lift myself—only to stumble and fall into a mess of limbs again. A paw lifts for the right side of my face—returning, sticky. I wince and try to get up again—and I fall.

When I hear the footsteps approach me once more.

O-Oh no.

As much as I struggle to lift myself in this larger and bipedal form, I fall once again, and to my dismay, the creature hoists a much larger and heavier body onto my own and I hear a few somethings crack with the descent. A squeak pierces me as I squirm and in the back of my head all I hear is my weak cry of oh no, oh no, oh no and as much as I pull myself up I only fall back down until I simply curl into a small ball and stay like that, whimpering.

I-I am not... ve-ve-very strong... n-n-now am I..?

Careful, rigid talons nuzzle into the back of my throat. I squeak—almost wordlessly, but I find myself unable to move. O-Oh, right... still atop me... nnng... I try, weakly, to shift, but not even that is applicable, so I release my efforts with a weary sigh. My head burrows into the sands.

The creature on top of me does not move. Not when my form disintegrates and bursts into little sparkles about me, leaving me with but my small human-like figure—neck still pierced betwixt talons. Not when I sneeze once, twice, three times. Not when I sink further into my failure does the vivosaur-like thing penetrate any more than the talons already have. Disinterested and nervous, I watch bruises crawl like fingers up and down my arms where, surely, my own vivosaurs have been afflicted. I poke at one of the spots, gently, and come away from it having bitten my lip again.

At some point throughout my fear, another set of footprints had begun to take toward me— _tm tm tm—_ small human footprints... or maybe scaled, like me, but humanoid nevertheless. I lift my head weakly—the creature makes adjustments to allow this much movement—so that I may watch the woman narrow her beady dark eyes toward me. Only when she mutters, "Back away, fiend," and the creature with the purple skin on top of me responds by hissing do I realize it was not me she saw after all. O-Oh. Right. I am... um... D-Does she catch sight of the crushed girl beneath it..? I-I do not know, I do not know...

Her own air contains a wispy, violet aspect to it: my stomach clenches as I recognize the coloring eerily similar to the creature—after leaping off of me—streaking toward her.

In but a moment she raises a staff in one hand—the other cradled round her middle holding a cloth—and the purple creature dispels.

I stare, breathless. My big and hungry and terrified eyes claw themselves up toward her, but it is as if my entire identity slips from her grasp. After a final survey of the area, she lifts the cloth and unveils beneath it a tiny... face. Gleaming ruby eyes catch mine, and my stomach freezes in my curled-up body: just like the face Reyna saw... only eons younger.

I swallow.

Even still, the woman has yet to register me. And then I realize... perhaps... perhaps the red-eyed girl with the face Reyna saw—the face eerily not unlike mine, though different in coloration and ferocity—perhaps this is... a memory. Her memory. I gasp, my body clenching: memory.

My memories. My long, long lost memories from all ages and times that I cannot even name any longer.

If I... am seeing her memories... then does that mean—

"AAUUUUHHHHHH!"

I clap my hands over my ears, curling up, whimpering, as a shudder squeezes me and the woman tumbles into the earth. A small stream of blood, pooling at her body, begins to lap at my side. I-I-I feel my head tipping in... and out... of black, null waves... and for a... for a... a... moment... I-I think... I think I will... will...will...

"Damn you..." her throaty whisper, squeezing out the last of her words with the last of her lapping blood. "Damn... you..."

Shaking, I curl up a little more, sucking in breath after breath after breath, feeling the blood on my hair, the hair on my scales, the scales crawling on top of the terrified conglomeration that attempts to hold my entire being together.

"Our... child"—gasp, gasp, gasp—"is... nnhh-ot"—gasp, ugly gasp—"for your... tihh-taayyhh"—spit, splutter, gasp—"ta-king." Burbles of words spill out from gaping lips but those words never find the strength to exist for longer than agonizing moments. I lay there, blood creeping along my body, paralyzed, as I listen to the dying breaths of a woman—a mother—whom I only relate to in the fact that she is a complete stranger.

"But I... suppose... it is too—too late... for my wishes. Mm...mmh..?"

Another horrible _CAHH, CAHH CAHHHKK_ of a cough, my shuddering body slamming together once more, and she still will not die. I feel horrible, horrible icy fingers clawing in my heart and see all kinds of vile images in the lake of blood and I feel sick but I wish I wish I wish she would die, I wish she would die already and stop suffering and stop trying to breathe when we all know she is going to die. And I feel like my insides are slowly burning inside of me and I feel like I must be the worst kind of person to ever exist as I clap my bloody hands over my sobbing face but I wish oh I wish please would she please _die_ already, _die_ now.

Hiccups convulse inside of me. I lay shaking in the pool of blood as I wait, and I wait, and I wait and finally her voice gives out after one last withering whisper: "Zhhooonga...zhhoooonnga... you cuhrrruoool... maahnn..."

When it gives out, I try to lift myself and I slip on the blood.

My stomach jolts. "N-No..." Wordlessly I lift myself again—and I slip—and I fall. "N-Nnnngh..!" Sticky, sticky blood... licking down my cheeks, on my scales, crawling in my hair. "L-Let go... P-Pihhh... Please... please... a-aahh..!" _Plurshh_ I go...

And I collapse... and I cry, and I cry...

Until I hear a voice, just quietly, in the midst of the near-total darkness...

 _Oh—oh, ancients. Dina! What's wrong?! DINA!_

Hurried footsteps. I can blearily make out the stout face, his horns shining weakly. Sad, pale blue eyes pick me out and he stands in front of me and he waits as my fingers claw into his side, and I pull myself up, and I rest against him, breathing heavy. The blood has disappeared... as has the body...

 _Dina... What happened? You look like... you remembered something awful. Hah. I'm... assuming you did? Or... one of the vivosaurs got to you? Those... creepy, purple monsters?_ A sigh as I nod to the first—then, shuddering—nod harder to the second. _Dina..._ and that is all he says, as he rests his head carefully over mine and I continue to shake and to cry.

He listens carefully as I tell him about the woman—hair... was long... and thick... and black—the woman with the child who was attacked by one of the monster creatures after dispelling one of them. She had a taut and angular face too, but something... something told me she was not the girl herself—older... more supple than she. The woman who died whispering the name of who I presume the father of the girl was...

He breaks off when my words meld into more tears than syllables. _Wait—Zongazonga? So you saw the memories of... Zongazonga's daughter, or Zongazonga's... dare I say wife? Or maybe not wife, maybe just his daughter's mother... I doubt a creature like him had a, uh, loving family, if I may._

 _Y-You may,_ I whisper.

He goes on, thinking through his process, having forgotten about my situation, but I do not mind. His lulling tone—like waves—calms the storm I went through, and I can listen to him happily, even as I shiver. He is warm... perhaps not a burning Torn heat, but a lapping Trikko warm, like a sunny ocean on a sunny day—and he never truly changes, unlike the waters themselves. A comforting... shade of blue.

 _So therefore... Wait... Ungh... Zongazonga... Zongazonga... I know we've heard that name before. But I still can't... quite..._

I stop, tugging on his foot. _Tr-Trikko. The... The purple vivosaurs... with the distorted... the, um..._

He nods. I go on, faster now. _Z-Zombiesaurs..? Are they zombiesaurs? And... Zongazonga was—_

 _That's right!_ he cries, _oh, Dina, that's right! Zongazonga controlled and created those... nasty zombiesaurs, more than one way out of proportion... and we fought him. What did he do... possession, right? And he kept going into people's bodies... breaking more into their souls... until they were able to defeat him and seal him away. But sealing away only works for so long... That's right, oh, that's right! We fought him when he returned—we defeated him... and... and..._

 _His daughter_ , I whisper, _his daughter was... the girl was... she..._ I splutter: _Z-Zoazoa..!_

Trikko catches my eyes.

 _Yes, Dina. The girl inside of you. The girl who took your memories... and eventually gathered enough energy to take over_ you _and crushed you into where she was for all of this time... Zoazoa._

He smiles a weary, sad smile, but I do not stop there. I gently take hold into his scaled body and I climb up on top of his back and I hug him around the neck, and again I whisper, _Thank you..._ And I notice, quietly, that there are less healing bruises upon him. And that still, faintly... instead of strange vivo—zombie—zombiesaur... he smells of that scent... only barely but enough.

 _S-So,_ I whisper, _now I am seeing... her memories?_

My tricera nods a gentle nod. _Maybe—with us—so long as we don't let her remove our 'parasitic' trespasses from your body that she took over—we can uncover more._

I suck in a breath. _Y-Yes. Th-Thank you_ , and he nods and smiles again.

When we are quiet, I tell him that I think I know how Torn feels now. And he tells me, yes, maybe so, and I tell him that I think the zombiesaurs are not aiming for us specifically, and he tells me, yes, I believe so.

And we stay like that as my body begins to ebb in shaking. And I hug him warmly to me, and I breathe, and he breathes too.

And he whispers, eventually, _Thank you too._

 _Torn_

One can imagine how I'd react to the monster getting Nyra good.

 _HOLY FUCKING SHIT SHITT SHIT FUCKING FUCKETY—GET OFF OF HER YOU SMUTTY BASTARD!_

Before anything else, let me say that I had no idea what was coming outta my shithole of a mouth at the time of departure. So anyways.

Aladee and Reyna were nearby, finishing off the last of the couple... and I think they're still in the area now. I try to keep this in mind.

I blow a mouth of fire at said bastard and while he oozes in burning pain I blow another, and only when I'm sure he's not gonna touch her again do I snap said shithole of a mouth shut. Our weird purple friend disintegrates like the other ones did, more or less, and I scoot over to Nyra and carefully eye her body. Y'know. In case she was hurt or... y'know. Slender form mostly disengaged from the handiwork combat usually promises... big and open wings, smiling Nyra face, fucking beauti—okay now she's looking at me weird I think I'd better stop.

She doesn't stop giving me the look. I cough. _What the fuck're you starin' at? I'm just making sure you didn't get hurt or anything..._ I mumble the last part, because I'm a dumbass, because it's only when you start mumbling that she really wants to listen to what you're trying to say. Ugh. Shit.

 _Oh?_ She giggles. I—ugh. Stop giving me that look or I'll fucking blush or something and my cheeks'll get all... purple again. _Should I stare at you with the same intensity to make sure you weren't hurt either?_

Ahhh fuck me fuck me fuck me— _I MEAN IT'S YOUR CHOICE NYRA I'M NOT ALL THAT APPEALING BUT IF YOU REALLY WANT TO—_

She splutters, and then I know I've really fucked myself. _Wh-What are you talking about? Torn, I'm teasing you! G-Goodness..._ She gives this sly little sidelong stare, and her face heats up. I lick my chops and try to eye her coy too but then she turns so I'm back at the start and I curse myself for being a fucking idiot.

Suddenly I really want to tell her something. It's... kind of the reason I followed her, anyways. H-Hah. Then again, it's kind of the reason I always follow her, kind of the reason I felt like such a bitch for forgetting about Trikko. Because Nyra. Because... fucking... Nyra. Ugh. Because _dammit_ , Nyra... I...

Okay. Okay. Whatever. Let's go. Right now.

 _Nyra, if you couldn't tell..._

She peeks out from around one of her wings. Her face is still kinda red. My heart hurts in my chest from all this jumping. _Yes, Torn?_ Gently. Those violet eyes watch me... gently.

 _Nyra, um..._ I swallow. C'mon, Torn. What the fuck is taking things slowly? You never took anything slowly, not even, like, talking with Dina. Which is stupid on my part because she's so fragile but whatever, I tried. _Nyra. Okay. Nyra._ Come on. Deep breath. _Nyra... I love you._

Somehow saying those words takes all of my energy out of me. I sag into myself, my voice a soft whimper.

 _T-Torn..._ She turns back again. Her face is still red. My hopes are ridiculously and ominously high. _Torn, I... ahhh..._ Her face crumples into itself. She sucks in one breath. Two. _Torn... I-I... ummmn..._ Blushing, wincing. _I... I mean, I thought that's what you were going to say, but... but why? T-Torn, may I ask... why? P-Please?_

I blush. _Sure?_ So I try again. _Okay, let's be honest about the obvious before anything else... Nyra, you are... well. You're hot. Okay? You are, and that isn't going to fucking change anytime soon, so I'll get that out of the way. Um..._ Oh, gosh... that was the easy part. Oh help me. _You're, um... you're..._ Shit, shit, shit. This is not a time to fuck up. _There's—it's like—something... Something about you, Nyra... it's just... it's..._ Ahhh, dammit...

As she tries to figure out what I even meant, I stare lamely at the ground. She... she... makes me happy, I guess. I guess that's the only real way I know how to say it. And I'm sure she can hear it, bouncing around in my head, happy happy fuckin' happy, because she smiles a small smile at that.

 _Thank you, Torn..._ Deep breath. _I don't know if... I love you. Um, I'm sorry. I don't. I never really thought about it..._ Looking away.

 _Oh. So you ignored the fact that my feelings were... well, obvious?_ She winces. Ow. Oh. That was nasty. Dammit, Torn. _I uh! I mean! Shhhit! I mean more than that, you're fucking better than... Sorry. Uhhg._ I sag into myself again.

 _No, it's..._ She shakes her head fiercely. _Sorry, Torn._

 _Sorry,_ I echo, feeling like... aw fuck, I don't even know. I'm just... ugh. Fuck me.

With a sigh, she goes on. _Give me some time. You're... special, Torn. I know that much. But um... give me some time to think about if... if I want to... be with you. Okay? You're... a good guy, Torn. Anyone with eyes can see—I mean... Even Reyna knows that._ Hah. _But just... Some time, okay? That's all I'm asking. I really... do like you! I just don't know if..._

I cough. _That's fine!_ Ah, damn. _That's... fine. Seriously. That's fine. Take your time._

So we leave it like that.

But that's okay. She's here, and I'm here... and that's okay.

Then I realize oh shit where's Trikko and we dart off to go find that sorry ass of a tricera.

 **Yeah, that's right, Torn got a POV xD ahhh he curses so much, it makes me angsty writing in his voice! Haha, but that's just how he is, so not to would ruin the story.**

 **He finally confessed to Nyra! Anyone who's been reading since The Alone Champion knows he's had feelings for her ever since she got her super revival alongside a burst of self-confidence, so good for... her? Or would it be Torn? Haha, anyways... we see more on Dina's side of things!**


	7. Rt: To Sharpen a Dull Blade

**Me: so rupert**

 **Rupert:**

 **Me: you feeling like you're gonna leave soon**

 **Rupert:**

 **Me: hey**

 **Rupert:**

 **Me: hey Rupert**

 **Rupert: is it enjoyable to torture me so?**

 **Me: no it sucks. I'll be honest, you and Dina are my otp**

 **Rupert: … -trying to hide arrogance- then why?**

 **Me: the story said so**

 **Rupert:**

 **Me: I promise. The story made me**

 **Rupert: … -sighs-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 7: To Sharpen a Dull Blade

 _Rupert_

With one hand I dig into Mistress's hide; with the other I clench my fingers and attempt, eyes closed, to steel myself. As many times as he has hurt me... while without physical mark... I feel it inside of me, and I must ignore it. Ah, to push pain away... My weak will wavers.

 _Dearie,_ murmurs the vivosaur beneath me, _it's alright. You're not as weak as you once were... We can do this._

I shake my head. _Mistress... Even so, I doubt my abilities. And... while it would be beneficial to harm him... he will always return, no? Until his dying breath... he will always return. Besides, my strength is fleeting at best._ If I put all of my energy into this little battle, this mind game with my father... Well. There is still enough turmoil inside of me to about fill the hole I found so long ago. He has made me... fragile. Oh, yes, fragile.

 _W-We won't kill him, will we?_

 _No, Mistress._ Could I even manage such a feat? I stare at my hands—my pale, marked hands, red in the areas where my gloves do not cover. _We will not kill him._ Somewhere I get the feeling that this is the ploy of a small fool, but I go along with it anyways.

What would happen, did we kill him? If we kill him, he will still succeed in harming us, some way or another: and I know that he would not be afraid to kill in turn. I see it in front of me: Todd stepping close, a well-placed stomp by the seismo. Luk, cast as a traitor, murdered in a similar form. Me... no, he would not kill me: he promised as much. Wants me... wants something only I can provide...

Ah. Social status. Of course. And—And wealth, surely.

Pippy, with a cry, launches his mass at the mentioned seismo. A whip of his tail sends the thing scraping the snowy earth by a small margin—so nearly hitting his own master—but at the same time he overbalances and strikes Mistress across the face. She whimpers but her armored body does not take much of a hit: Pippy, however, squeals.

 _YEEEEEEKK!_

I wince. Mistress yelps. _D-Dearie! D-Do watch out!_

 _Yes but! But I! I! Nnnngh! Droplet and Harei aren't big enough to get hit by my tail! That's not fair—no fair—I—this isn't—gghh—_

 _Pippy—Pippy,_ the mapo queen murmurs, _Pippy, darling, my dearest apologies but I am neither your Hayr-rai or yo—_

 _GYEEEEEEEEEH!_

The look on the face of my father sours by smirk as my seismo is slammed back by a similar attack of his own. I sigh. Before I word anything else he lifts a hand and the attack goes on a second time. My eyes close as Pippy swerves into Mistress and the both careen toward the snow, little white flakes snuffing out their scales accordingly. Quickly my mapo queen lifts herself again; Pippy, struggling in the slew, his small feet kicking, squirms before conquering—by then Mistress has rammed her spiny face into the body of the other seismo and sent him reeling and first ramming into him two, three, four more times and he attempts to counter with a slam of his own head, which rams into the snow.

We observe quietly. _W-Well,_ she murmurs. I ask her to open her maw and she releases a short beam of water that freezes on impact. We stare at the seismo head now frozen in the snow. _So um—_ she starts, cut off by the strangled yell Camri makes as his floppy body launches itself atop another sauropod, this one marginally shorter and a red-and-black combination: only for Luk to realize last-second that the amargo has rather sharp spines across the majority of his back.

And—oh. Oh. Ancients—my other vivosaurs...

Mistress titters gently. _Try to focus, dearie._ I give another shake of my head when the side of it is overcome by a dull, throbbing pain.

And I look down upon my tiny yellow marple as she is slammed into the snow by the half-frozen face of that bloody seismo. My eyes close.

 _Mistress..?_

She gingerly lowers her maw and digs her teeth into the earthen neck and lifts it. Somehow Sunny has yet to lose herself. I shake my head again and ask her to get out of the hole, which she does accordingly—then after a sidestep she sends a small flurry of snow into the seismo. There is... not much of a reaction. So I turn and I recall Gyntis, and I instruct him to attack the amargo.

Todd is nearby... I can sense his vivosaurs teaming up... A third vivosaur—and a fourth—two raptors, white feathered—scrambling to keep up with rapids of winds that far outlast their own, the leaps and the snaps and the bites and the spikes that shoot off of his goyle in rapid pace, and I take in a breath and I look at Gyntis and I ask the bluish-white vivosaur to do it again—then I go to Mistress and tell her to stomp at the seismo—and Sunny to support her.

And I take in a breath.

Not so bad. Just... focus.

But the seismo swings out of reach and manages to nab his head into Mistress's side—so that she reels—and that she lands a foot atop poor Sunny's head—and Gyntis cannot assess where the amargo will be next so he misses too and a sheen of fire sucks against his skin.

My face... burns. I ache all over from the pummeling and trampling of Sunny... Camri has managed to sluice into the amargo a second time without hurting himself, so that at least gives me relief.

Somehow I feel that I am forgetting something... but I ignore the notion, overworked as it is. My chest pangs.

My father smirks. He pulls off his sunglasses, and eyes travel over my decomposing state. He watches as I ease myself off of Mistress—patting her as I drop—and when I land I search for Sunny in the snow. Still— _still—_ she remains, to which I sigh and—and with a hesitant swerve—pat her as well.

 _Can you... control... the snow?_ I ask her.

 _Well._ She blinks. _Snow is ice, and ice is... solidified water... so, erm, yes, I can._

 _Then next time—_ I offer but she understands and shoulders off of me. Her finned body melds into the melting ice, and then I cannot see her any longer. I dart back and call for Tessa—and I realize here that it was she I misplaced.

The medal flicks into my fingers. I stare at it weakly, swallowing. Burns across... the amargo must have gotten to her while I heeded no attention. And Todd was busy with his three... and Luk with Camri, who I am sure takes more than his fair share of personal... needs.

No use brooding... No use brooding. I pull my head up and call for Gyntis who comes streaming, and he takes his place beside me. _What's next?_

 _Gyntis..._ I take in a breath. _You get on top of that seismo. Sunny, wherever you are, head along... toward the amargo. Luk will surely require assistance. Mistress, go with them. And, um, Pippy... if you will allow me to direct you... follow whatever lead Gyntis takes. Support as needed._

I feel... my body... is shaking. I take my steps back and watch my father watch me with those metallic eyes, the only light inside of them reflected by the surfaces around him. His grim smile dines upon my fear, and when I pause to sneeze his lips rip into a tighter snarl of a grin. I continue to step back without thinking until my foot slips and my leg traps into a hidden hole. Oh, ah... I... I... I look up and he is walking toward me and I panic, my face red, my nose burning, my eyes thick.

 _Mistress..!_ In an instant she is there and coils her tail about me and pulls me upward and I take in another breath and wait as she ambushes the unseeing amargo from aside. Without even a glance from the direction of my... my father the amargo raises her stiff body and slams a foot into the soil where Sunny must have been, but, oh, bless that impossible marple, she swerves and quickly encases that foot in ice. The squirming proves her opponent futile for now.

So I turn to the seismo, taking quick and careful steps away and away from my father. _Pippy, use your tail—_ and with Mistress out of his way he winds up and a great _CrrhHHHk_ slaps into the grimacing seismo who spits a small wad of blood into the snow. Pippy stutters back with a whimper at this, and with the seismo distracted by my weakened one Gyntis pulls out his freakish claws and jumps and stabs them into the poor half-frozen face of the creature. A keening, wailing cry hailed to the skies, and finally the giant tumbles.

 _Pippy,_ I mutter, voice weak, _g-good_.

It hurts. Something inside of me... hurts. But there I stand, shaking, smiling.

The surge of pride nearly overwhelms him and he has to lower his bashful head. Gyntis hisses as he pulls out his claws— _sssssnick—_ and he yells, _RUPERT! BEHIND YOU!_

When I turn I find a fifth—a-a fifth?—vivosaur racing toward me. The wings upon it—a strange blue aopteryx, larger than most I have seen—flutter as it reaches, eyes popping out of its face, for me. My head whips sidelong and I catch my father stepping toward me again, and he is smiling, and he knows that I never expected to win, and he took that as meaning I would... I would... would...

How many vivosaurs are in his arsenal? A-And where did he get them? And—as I turn back to that freak bird—what is... with... those eyes? With a yowl, I listen, shivering, as the seismo lifts itself from its fallen spot and as I turn these reddish, haunting eyes catch mine. And he is bleeding from his maw and he is bleeding from his head and he is bleeding from his neck and the ice is burning into his scales and still he will not leave me—leave any of us be.

Todd, from wherever he is, cries, and it reverberates through vivosaur after vivosaur: _This is... This is no fair! They won't stop it! Unngh!_

Luk yells back: _Oh... Oh, dang it! Rupert... you know what these are, right?_

My father must hear their voices too, because the grin shreds his face as he watches me swallow.

 _I know._

The vivosaurs I had attained over the years. He always took them from me... all but Mistress—whom my mother had given to me when I was much younger, so I always presumed there was reason behind that—but here they are. His little... terrifying... unstoppable army. I whip my head aside and stare at the seismo from a tournament in Vivosaur Island some years ago and wonder if he remembers me. Then I shake my head—of course not—and the thought occurs... What happens... if he keeps fighting...without returning to his medal?

Mistress winces from her side of the battlefield. She slams her side into the amargo and as it shudders beneath her she begs. _Stop! Stop fighting! I-I don't want you to die!_ And her voice cracks partway through and she keeps begging, begging, begging and I slowly rip my head away from the sight and I step by a feverish Pippy and gently, slowly, carefully put my foot into his side. My hands upon his hind leg, I climb, slowly, climb, and when I reach his side I ask him from his back: _Please go ahead and ignore the seismo. The aopteryx. Go for the aopter—_

Not another word and he rips out of his stupor. A foot bashes air, against the chest of the creature—and as I watch it I remember when I last saw this pathetic thing... its feathers were still white, and it was slightly smaller, and it was...

when I first took Dina somewhere with me... and it was only us... and my hand was in hers and there was such a precious little smile on her face. We had a small battle, a practice battle—the Caliosteo Cup was still going on—and she did win... but it was... it was strangely nice. Just being around her, seeing the side of her that had wriggled itself into the tournament and had come this far. She was so gentle, even when fighting, and it was easy to tell she felt guilty each time she rose against someone.

I want... I want to protect that smile. I do not want... to see it falter... or, goodness forbid... die.

And this man—my eyes narrow in on the smirking thing with the aviators clamped in clammy hands—this wastrel of a human being would taint it, taint it like he did the shaky and gentle aopteryx I once had as my own, taint it like the quiet seismo he took as his now, like... he would do to Tessa, to Sunny, to any of them, if I let him any closer.

To Dina, if I am not strong enough.

To Dina, if he finds her. To Dina, if he finds the monster who possessed her, if his army of disfigured entities takes her down as easily as they could me and and and and... and...

 _Pippy,_ I whisper. The vivosaur raises his head and whisks his tail into the snow just in front of my father, who makes no move, his face stony. I take in the face of the seismo, his eyes so similar to hers, his gentle shyness so similar to hers... So I pull myself off of him too and rush over toward him, toward my father.

My fingers clench into fists as I near. Tessa's medal slides into my left palm. I lift my head from my hand to his face. His lips curl. I take in a breath. I clench my hand. I take in another. The wing-beats of the aopteryx near and halt as I send Gyntis over to it. The cries cut off. Mistress... I feel Mistress somewhere... but I cannot quite fill in where, so I snap myself to focus again and I stare at the man who sired me.

"Son," he murmurs, tone sugared, sappy. He thinks he won. "Son, you understand now, don't you?" Let him think as he wishes. I swallow and I say nothing. "Come... along. You've seen the ancients, surely? There are... a great number of them. And I wonder if it's possible to... use them... to an advantage." The face forms into a fickle snare, and he thinks, oh, he thinks... "It's rather simple. We can amplify your power, bend the wills of those around us... Perhaps instead of the prince of a company... we could convert you to the prince of the crown."

He thinks... what, exactly?

Thinks I will side with him on his twisted little conquest, build upon the ruin of others. First his connections to form himself his company; then from his company he desired more and killed his wife; then after killing his wife he took in his son and nearly destroyed the life in his eyes; and on top of that he took his son's collected vivosaurs and formed them into his army.

Oh. And his servants. The number of families he corrupted in the kidnapping, in the taking, in the stealing of their children.

Why..?

I pull Tessa's medal in front of me. Jagged edges have mended, mostly. There is a small pinprick that has cut a thin line through my hand. I feel it throbbing. Folding my fingers over the medal, I ignore it. Take in a breath. Step a little closer. Another caw from behind is halted by my raptor. My father catches eye of the medal and his hand extends closer, palm-up, generously. My face nearly gives away the yelling in my head until I furiously silence my stray features. When I look up again, I do not release Tessa—a nervous cheep in her throat—merely do I stand tall—shorter than him—and take my step back.

Somewhere inside of me, I hear Todd frantically pulling back his vivosaurs, calling them to his hands, storing the medals away. I hear footsteps pummeling the snow. I hear Luk battling with the fierce and unrelenting will Camri holds so closely, and I hear him finally give into the servant. Then Luk—footsteps, too. Medals filing into hands... Mistress is gone, Sunny is gone.

He hears these things too. His eyes follow mine as they roam the area, and one of his hands grasps my shoulder. I jolt and he goes on, quickly, voice low: "Boy... I raised you. I sired every piece of you, I made you, I grew you into who you are today, and never did you find a reason to act against this will." I swallow, my head down. His words hit me but I can hardly hear anything other than the breath filling and emptying my lungs. "This is our reign. This is for our glory." His hand is cold. "You know this, don't you? Your mother"—no, stop—" _died_ for this. You know that, don't you? You know that she"—stop, stop it, stop it, please—" _died_ for our cause, don't you?"

Something inside of me is breaking. His hands are on it and it hurts, it hurts, it...

Shame trickles in through the small hole inside of me. I feel it, first in puddles, then small streams that form into rivers into lakes then roaring seas of shame fill my ears, fill my mouth, fill my wide eyes until I can hardly breathe.

Is this... sad? H-Hah... maybe it is sad. But just being in his presence brings a kind of pain to my heart that I find myself unable to escape from. And that cold, cold hand on my shoulder is squeezing and waiting and waiting for me to submit blindly as I always have...

So I raise the mending medal... and I strike it into his skin. And I feel it pierce and I know, I know it is nothing comparable to the storm that shakes me to the bottom of my soul, and he hardly reacts, merely jumps back from me, but I feel... I feel unstoppable.

I lurch away from the creature that tried so hard to raise a soulless child atop his pile of corpses, a sort of vessel for his glory. He reminds me... of someone else, someone else who tried to take me in, to use me, to abuse my body and take everything he could... oh, Zongazonga...

It makes me sick.

So I take more steps back, another, another, Tessa's medal burning in my palm, and I stare back at the thing who sired me however many years ago—was it... twenty? Have I been alive now for... twenty years..? Were all of them under his possession? No... No, there was a time—is a time—called today—where he is not... above me. Today and every other day after it, so long as I do not lose myself. Breathing heavily, wheezing, I step back once more for good measure and I watch my father flinch.

Wait... wait... no. I shake my head. No. Did I see that right? I did not... what are—What is he doing? Why are his eyes so... hollow... as they watch me? Why does my throat constrict like so when his figure diminishes against me? Why am I shaking? What is this shame and why won't it let go of me? Why can't I... breathe..?

Why does he look so... lonely?

I feel... cold...

Fingers find mine. Sure, they squeeze me and pull upon me, and I gasp as my heart begins to pump again. Another tug, a gentle tug, and I follow after the one who has taken hold over me, and I watch as another form joins us after. There is moving and running and dodging between vivosaur bodies and I hear a howl of hatred bear down upon us. But we don't stop running. The form in front of me—dress folds brushing tenderly against the snow—reminds me... of someone. The hands are tanner, the form just larger... but my heart twists when I think of her.

Onward, onward, ducking past tree branches and the stray rock, until finally the gaping mouth of a cave beckons closer, and closer, and with a release of bated breaths we enter. I swallow. My face, hot, burns in the chilly atmosphere. My gloves fold over my hands, and my hands cover my face. I take in deep, long breaths, shuddering down to my toes, and eventually I sit on the cold cavern floor. Mistress unearths from the pockets of one of the boys and rests herself beside me.

Todd turns, having released my hand, and he waves gently. "Hey... Are you okay, Rupert?

His voice is... quiet. Soft. When I don't respond, he sits himself beside me. His smile refuses to leave. "Scary... Your dad's pretty scary. Hey, uh... before we started getting the heck out of there, I uh... I um..." He bites his lip, finally facing the apart from me. "I recognized some of the vivosaurs he was using. Those all... those were yours, weren't they? O-Once..." He swallows. His head tilts just the slightest. While it remains, his small smile is sad. "The raja. You had a raja once. It was pretty scared all the time—and I'll be honest, I used to wonder if Aladee was him—and... there it was." He shudders, pushing himself next to me. I flinch back. He takes no note. "And... a krypto too. That was there." Sighing, he goes silent.

"Yes." My voice is not much more than a rasp. "Yes... That is, ah... that is how my father views the lives of others." Todd's already-worn face wears further. "My... apologies. It is... hard to take in. I... used to, um... I used to be like him, Todd... Or at least... close enough. My will for living... my heart... was tired. Was dying. Until—"

His head snaps up. "Until Dina." He has found some margin of his lost vigor. My heart releases a knot, heavy in relief. "Until you met Dina, right? She... She changed... you." His eyes widen: recognition. "She was gentle with you. And she didn't know who you are, so she didn't act all... like, hah, like _I_ did when we met. You must've been so... _done_ with... so many things until you..." he draws off, then whispers, "until Dina."

"Yes," I whisper, my face heating, my heart thick, "yes... until Dina."

"Wow." His voice has softened even more so. "Wow... Rupert. Heh. It's no wonder..." He stops a moment to release a little bout of giggles. "It's no wonder you were drawn to her. Heh... All this—All this time, Rupert... I had no idea. I had no idea why... she meant this much to you.

His lips curl into a gentler, warmer smile. "I knew... no. No. I know why she loves you. I've known her for so long... I sometimes woke up at night to hear my parents do... bad things. Heh. They hurt her a lot... so I never thought she'd find... Oh, what's she call it..."

"Safety," I whisper.

"Safety." Todd's smile blooms. "Safety... home. Man, she was obsessed with that a little bit. I mean it makes sense... amnesiacs and orphans and those kindsa people probably... all are, to an extent. And... I guess you kind of are too.

He smiles a little more, scooting toward me again. I... manage to stay put. "Man... you guys must bring a lot of comfort to each other, huh? A kind of comfort that only the two of you could really share... understand..." His fingers entwine in front of him, and he closes his eyes. A sleepy, smiley look permeates about him... and I think he is right.

So... I want to find her. I-I... I have to find her... no..? It hurts without her. It simply... does. So I must... do my best... and hope that she does too.

But... that is not all, is it? Oh. No, no... it is not all. I am not... alone. My heart clenches but it is true, is it not? Here is her foster brother, pleased with her finding... someone she cares about—pleased with me for being so... special to her. Beside and behind him, Luk still stands, his eyes warily tracing the opening of the cave one more time before sitting on my other side. He... followed me. He—He understands too, doesn't he? He has seen all kinds of sides from my father... and certainly a few even I have not encountered.

My heart still rushes, faintly, from the taste of the blood I drew. The faces of scaled and feathered creatures I have not seen in months, if not years. If not decades. Twenty years... I do not want to think about how many vivosaurs I revived in that time. Then I feel... sick... again. What would Dina think, if she realized this alongside me? She... She would...

I wish I knew. I put my head in my hands again, and I sigh softly, too drained to cry, to yell, to hate, to yearn. I just wish I knew, that is all. I know her... I know her so well. But I cannot draw out every single piece of her... for I am not Dina. I am... her lover.

And I do love her... and I just... wish. I just wish... and I wish I knew what exactly I was wishing for. Something... I cannot quite put... into words. Perhaps for strength, the strength to end my father. Or for wisdom, the wisdom to know what to do without Dina—or how to return her to my side, where I want her to be. Or perhaps just for her. Just for Dina.

I feel... so cold.

Mistress stirs beside me. Her tail coils about me, and I let it stay there, resting my back to her side. I try to be thankful for that... even somewhat: for warmth at all, for warmth from the vivosaur I have had for... so long. A vivosaur I never lost to the clutches of a power-blind man, when there must have been all kinds of moments where I could have. Oh... thank goodness for Mistress. Thank goodness, I whisper to myself, thank goodness.

So I raise my head to her side, careful not to stir any of her spines, and I close my eyes for just a moment. The cavern resonates with a faint chill... and our breaths come out as white puffs of air. We are drained, exhausted from our futile attempt to... whatever the purpose of that trial against my father was. Todd and Luk certainly fare no better than I do... Oh, what a strange feeling, this acceptance... I never thought I would search for another person and openly attempt to embrace them into... my life.

Funny, how a lonely boy learned to distance himself from others when what he wanted was a friend... someone... anyone. My lips draw into a weak smile. From where he lies, Luk peers over his shoulder at me, and he whispers, "Heeey."

I come to attention. "What is it?" I ask back, careful not to raise my voice. I think Todd has fallen asleep...

"I was just thinkin'..." Luk scoots closer too, so I scoot away from him, only there is so much hide left on the other side of Mistress so before long the blue-haired boy has caught up with me. His goggles, the ugly disasters, lie within his tangled hair: sharp hazel eyes prod me alongside a somewhat worrisome level of curiosity. "You've never approached me like that before, Rupy." My eyes narrow at the nickname but I make no other comment, verbal or otherwise, so he goes on. "Like... seriously. I think I always... scared you away, or something. Or maybe I was a little annoying... haah. Or... Or maybe you were too weak to... to..." He winces. "Y'know what? Talking about how annoying you are will not help me be your friend so how about I doooon't go down that path."

"Luk?" My own inquisition causes his face to heat in a small strand of confusion. "What... is, er, 'annoying' about me? If... I may ask." The shock on his face is enough to make me look away. Always... the dramatic one.

Those eyes of his, beckoning, friendly, poke at me a little. "I meaaaan," he mutters, "if you reaaaaally wanna knoww..." He puffs out a breath of air. "Okay, uh. So uh... I dunno. You're always so, like... quiet. And I feel like I might upset you if I do something wrong, and that's... preeeetty spooky, haahah. Y'know? Like... walking on glass. It's... I mean, I didn't have the Most Funnest Ever of All Time childhood so... I was lonely too. But you always... you like..." He raises his hands and gesticulates nearly-crossing fingers that scratch back at each other. "You like... you never really..."

"O-Oh." My eyes diverge from his demonstration. "My... apologies."

"Yeah, you're pretty freaky, Rupy!" He stops. "Oh wait... Well. Was that harsh? Sorry. That was kind of harsh."

His words try to push into me, to draw me, and I find myself leering back again. "No... it is fine." But I struggle with myself... and I lift my head, and I can see the care this poor boy is putting, for once, into his words. So I look away again, face heating. "Really. I-I mean it. You are... alright. It can be... hard... to be around me, yes?"

"Hah..." He smiles; I feel those sharp eyes ward away from me. "Well, yeah. But I guess I'm a little unbearable too, mhmm? Like, lookit me"—he shoves his shoulder against mine—"like"—pushes an arm around me—"like you can't"—so I quickly stand and turn back from him.

For reasons I cannot define, Luk stands too, hands upon his hips. "Yeah! See? You can't do that. You're all... withdraaaawn... and stuff." He adds a layer to the word as if suggesting me a fantastical beast. "Y'know. It's hard to get into you, and then you're so reluctant, especially cuz you were like 'well I got me a Din-Din so it's all good' but... now you don't got a Din-Din.

My heart squeezes. "So, now, because she's gone"—Luk. Do not say that—"So now that means that I can"—so simply, so easily, lay her name to the grave and—"Y'know, which means"—gone, is she? Having given into her plight—"I can like"—dodge back and—

He grabs my hand. Squeezes it. I won't look, still, I won't look. My gaze burns into the cavern tiles below, their chill soaking through my boots. "Hey..." Soft, like Todd spoke. "Hey... It's alright. We're here. You're not the only one here... okay? The world isn't over just because Dina is..."

Gently he releases me, and he watches me, as if suggesting me a wild creature. There is an amount of hope sustaining his posture, but beneath that there is a great shadow, one he wishes to give into, that I will not abide to him but instead evade another of his parries. That I will not take this blow.

"Dina is not over." Not sitting down, I will not take it. "Luk... we do not know if she is truly dead or not. We do not—Simply... too many... variables, in the sense. I was possessed once"—oh... No—"I mean... twice. Once... willingly. The other was by the hands of... Zongazonga."

And here he pauses, mouth agape. People knew... about Zongazonga. A frenzied ancient who willfully possessed people and robbed them of their souls so that he could tap into his true powers... a bit of a blinded-mind, I presume. As well he grew out of history as the tyrant who tried to control humanity... and succeeded for some amount of generations. But people were not there to witness my fading of heart as I succumbed to the second—whose name I never even learned—and allowed his rampage to fulfill me, so long as I could bust the bloody door that had held a terrified Dina from me.

Because I was not strong enough. Because—no—I _am_ not strong enough. If I was then I would not have fallen; if I was now... if I was now...

A wariness circulates through the chamber like any other breeze. Teasing his lip, Luk asks me, "Why?"

"Because..." I want him to understand. I... want someone to understand. Because, I accept, lip curling, Dina cannot... right now, at the very least. "Because she was... afraid, and hurt, and I wanted so dearly to see her... and she was locked in a room, before... before she was fully possessed... and I could not listen to her cry... those soft, painful tears..." So I broke through. Though I realize now, as Luk's face tenses, that perhaps there were other ways to achieve this same goal without such... desperation.

Well...

Oh, I cannot look at that face of his. I turn and consider leaving or—or something when the steps of hard-padded and clawed feet on stone chill me. So I turn again into the scaled muzzle of an e-raptor who has acquired the equivalent of a smirk upon his maw. He continues to smirk and I feel my face heat as I shake my head and ask him, _What are you doing, Gyntis?_

 _Saying hello_. Casually.

 _...May I ask why?_ Gyntis, what are you up to? What is... going on in that head of yours?

The smirk upturns into more of a simpering gesture. I grimace. _You really are standoffish, uh?_ A shake of his head. _Mmmh. I can understand why Torn's had his doubts about you._ He continues to peer, his head tilting. My face heats as I begin to turn again. _See! There it is! I get that on a level I'm making you uncomfortable, but there you go! There it is, Mistress and gentlemen!_

I wince. _Gyntis_. But after that I am silent so he takes this as an excuse to continue.

 _Shit, Rupert—_ I wince again— _never in my long life, both as a vivosaur of now and a vivosaur before my first death, never did I meet someone as socially implacable as you are. Damn_. He shudders openly. _You're faaaan-tastic at shutting people down, that's for sure. One word and we go stone cold and stone silent, uh? Sometimes I wonder why I bother with you..._ With the tilt of his head turning upright again, I feel a tendril of icy chill inject my heart.

But he is right, is he not? Why else do I readily assume the vivosaurs I revived would wish to stay with me when they can get themselves out of this monotonous life and go do something... I don't know... fun?—something that could promote a smile? I... certainly... am not the one another should go to when searching for an ease to their pain.

 _Hey! Chill._ I blush again, head down. _Rupert, I didn't say that meant you have to attack yourself. Geesh... I know that you know that you're pretty awful when it comes to connecting with other people. You just... gotta be more aware that it's not gonna make everyone against you. See? Todd didn't leave. Luk didn't leave, and that poor soul's been trying for years now. He's a fighter, I'll say. And... hey. Vivosaurs are meant to fight. No big deal. We all know that... you're not empty hatred on the inside._

 _I may as well be,_ I mutter. There are times when it feels... as if... if...

 _Rupert_. His sharp tone snaps my head back up to his eyes. _I don't think someone who's fallen in love with another person can—_

And I cannot listen any longer.

So I turn, and with a step I finalize this notion. And I walk, and I walk, and then I walk faster until I reach a form of a run and I leave the cavern behind me. Stepping into the element sabotages my face with snowflakes, with the foul breath of nature, with a coldness I had not experienced prior to my leave, but at this point I do not care enough to turn back. I take hold of my shivering, aching body, and I continue to walk. Slow. Careful. Turn right—Uphill. Feet pushing into snowbanks lightly before stepping. Diving and searching into the snowy void for anything other than this... whiteness.

My breath floats in the air around me. Like a fog it conceals my vision ever further: each breath I take comes out more ragged and desperate than the last and I begin to feel the idiocy of my predicament. Head turned hard toward the icy earth, I embrace my idiocy with an intoxicated smile.

Thinking of it now... my life has consisted of one danger after another: the verbal and sometimes physical limitations my father put onto me... falling in love, as Gyntis so put it, with another person... another person who, may I add, suffered from amnesia... and of course vivosaurs on their own are untapped forces of power: like nature incarnate, they are fires and oceans and gales and boulders, and here they are, held inside of a single scaled body. Then there is Gyntis, too... there are those of his neutral element who do not quite fit in any category... although he specifically comes equipped with a frightening toxin.

So there it goes again. A snowflake scrapes against my face—so close to my eye—to the twisted cut on my chin—that I flinch. Hold my head back down, stuff my frigid fingers into pockets so that at least they can recuperate from their lost battle. And I sigh as I look up and betwixt blown breaths and snowflakes, betwixt cold's contact and white lace... I think I see the stars. A sky of care painted in heavy darks and only the smallest undertones of light, speckled of those little dots of white... little white dots...

I only cease when I feel the hints of a body losing the war between cold and eternal slumber. Shaking my head, I go on, my pace faster this time—or as fast as I can make it. Shelter. I need shelter before the freak weather takes me away... because then I never will see her again, will I? Oh how sad... outside of my pain and outside of my fears I only look to see her again.

Is that... so bad? Is it so bad to be compelled by such a force? Such a warm... caring force? One that I know will keep me alive so long as I know of its existence?

So I continue. I know Luk and Todd would be fools to think they could follow me: and I doubt they will. They know how... deadly... the frost can be.

Good. I whisper this to myself wordlessly. Good, good, good. My heart hurts but I tell myself that it is well anyways.

How silly of me... and how vulnerable it is... to be in this life of mine. Is there anyone else who would thoughtlessly stroll into the eye of a blizzard? Hah... I doubt so...

Once... when we fought in the semifinals of the Caliosteo Cup... I was pitted against my cousin. Dinu. She was never one for conversation, even less so than me, and she did not take the battle—nor the entire tournament—seriously. Merely our grandfather—Scatterly—recommended she "get out more". In our battle she eventually told her vivosaurs to hamper their own techniques as to allow my victory... because she simply did not care for those kinds of trivial fights. It is... how she is. Our battle took place on an icy stadium... and I recall, smiling weakly, there was a crack in one part of it which I believe was caused by one of our vivosaurs, and I think one of mine actually fell in too.

Dina... came to see me... after my... more or less victory.

She told me, when she saw the crack, that she was thankful she had not fought in the semifinals—as that was when Todd's friend Pauleen broke her hand—and Pauleen, pitted against she, felt guilty enough to draw herself out from the tournament.

And she told me she was thankful, because, had one of hers fallen into the crack... she would have gone after them.

Oh, Dina... I miss you...

Please... do not fall into any cracks of ice while you are not with me. And if you do... please do not let yourself die. Please... do not let that gentle... little light of yours... go out.

I am not sure how long it takes. I cannot recall most of the time I spent searching... but a white blank in the back of my head. But I know that when I see it, that when I see it... I know I must not waste chances, and I speed my lagging pace just as much more as I can handle until my hand reaches the doorknob. I pull and I thrust and I slam the breath of wind behind it shut and I stay like that, panting, eyes streaming from the sudden and welcome change.

The immediate effect nearly kills me. I sink to the earth and I stay like that for some time, too afraid to stand, too afraid to do anything other than sit on the welcome mat atop the oak wood floor. I am... shaking. A lot. I can feel my body closing in on itself in a burst of relief and tire... so I close my eyes for some time, and I stay like that.

Why a snug little cabin existed at all on the edge of the snowy valley's top... I do not know. But the relief is overwhelming... the relief is so overwhelming...

 **so uh  
don't be like rupert, kids!**

 **Or dina for that matter psh**

 **Todd: DON'T BE A DINA... DUMMY**

 **sometimes I worry about how much I mention Dina in these chapters... but I guess Jkonna did the same for Dino in TSFF, plus if I wasn't mentioning Dina I wouldn't be writing about Rupert... haha.**

 **But this guy! He's just putting himself through all the dangers!**

 **Will he have a change of heart? Buh buh buhhhhhhh**

 **also if Torn was the single creature who ever uttered a single curse word in the story I felt that would be... lopsided. So some of the characters who had like no characterization are having that added to them hahahah (as in Gyntis... but there will be other too)  
**

 **anyone who remembers The Lost Fossil Fighter and The Alone Champion might wonder why it's only characters coming from the latter who curse... xD I wonder that too... it's just sort of how it happened?**


	8. Rt: Fatal Pattern

**Todd: RUPY**

 **Rupert: -.- what is it, Todd?  
**

 **Todd: WHY DID YOU RUN AWAYYYYYyyy**

 **Rupert:**

 **Todd: WHYYYYyYYHHHHhhh**

 **Rupert: -wince- could you lower your—**

 **Todd: DO YOU WANT TO DIE**

 **Rupert: … not... particularly**

 **Todd: STUPID -slaps him- STUPID**

 **Rupert: -grabs Todd's hand the next time he tries to slap him and immediately releases it, a revolted look on his face-**

 **Todd: TTwTT rupyyy**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 8: Fatal Pattern

 _Rupert_

I stay like that, in the warmth of the cabin. Where I lay in the entrance hall there is an opening to the left and another to the right... the left tempts me in sight of bedding, a blanket... the right revealing a small storage area, table and chairs in front, cabinets toward the back. Wincing, I lift myself to my feet and take my time walking, careful, slow. Each step sends a small bite of pain into my foot. By the time I reach the entrance of the kitchen area I grip the frame tightly and breathe. My face is burning but with every second another shiver wracks me.

Did I... break myself? A sharp cough squeezes me. I stay there for some time, unable to quite move myself just yet. If... If I focus enough, then I think... I think I can taste...

Swallow. I ignore it.

Another deep breath and I manage to go on. Gentle steps across the oak wood floor, careful precision. I draw my fingers along the back of a nearby chair—also oak—observing the lacy seat upon it. When I touch that my fingertips are met with a smooth, velvety substance... I wonder who put all of this care into their stitches... into the choice of the wool alone. Merely seeing it, intricate patterns, an array of detail, entrances me.

But I turn back to my task at hand. The cabinet just in front of me beckons: I tuck my fingers around the cold metal and pull it open. _Caaaaaahh—_ Quickly I yank it the rest of the way, sucking in a breath.

In the semi-darkness haze I eye a row of... glass cans. Fruits and vegetables, and yeasts, and nuts. Carefully sealed and carefully prepped... oh, I wonder who it was, the mystery occupant, their superb stitching, their packed goods... their readiness for... for something. But what? I wish I knew.. Oh, I wish I knew anyone outside of my father and the monsters who possessed me. Outside of Todd, Luk... But does this make me... a lonely existence?

The smile twists on my lips. No matter.

I take my leave of the chamber in favor of the one on the left. The windows, sealed tightly shut by glass—some reinforced with shutters outside, others by curtains to conceal the mess outdoors—shake in their places. Makes me feel as if I am trapped... some... not a fortress, but a prison of sorts... or a... an otherworldly placement, almost, if that even makes any sense...

Like every step... sends me closer... to an inevitable scheme... Of what, I suppose, I shall find out soon. Although... maybe I should not look forward to such a sealing. Hah... no, maybe not. There are no pictures of any form upon the walls, so outside of the kitchen area I have yet to comprehend what sort of presence lies within. A part of me fears what will happen as I go on... each creak in the floor summons a flinch out of me. I should expect it by now, I should take in a breath and ignore it but I fear what if the sound leads to something else and what if that something else is actually a someone and what if that someone is... behind me?

So I turn, immediately, breathless. But naught but my shadow, hidden in black pillars of shade, lies waiting. My eyes close and I smile feebly to myself: look what I have done. Oh, look at me. How... pitiable. When I turn again I try to pretend that my flinches did not happen, try to brush off my palpable and rising, rising tension.

Inside of the chamber there lies the bed in the furthest left corner. A quilt upon it, long, tangled with colorful memories... some faded. The creaky floor is straining me so I sit upon the bed only the rusty hinges scrape into my mind and I get up and take in a breath and then I sit. Cold wood floor. It is quiet afterward, quiet but for my gasping breaths. Oh, Luk would find this so amusing if he was here... Face paling, I find myself strangely glad he is not. I am going to drive myself mad if I let this go on much longer. Since when did soft noises hurt my head this severely? Since when did fear run amok in my veins? Since when... when did...

What was it... that Dina used to say?

Fear... was like a brother to her. Because that was all she had, was it not? There was a time in her life when her single comfort was an abstract feeling labeled as "fear" and she curled up with that sensation, and that was what she had. It—It makes me wonder, now... what kind of a life it was prior to her... amnesia. I almost wish she didn't have a brother so I wouldn't get so... jealous... over her. Oh, goodness... I am quite the... the mess...

Should I continue? My lone self examines in the empty corner of the chamber a door. Held agape, barely, a small shaft of light trickling through. Light? What... light? Is there something behind the door, something held within? And... And what would be inside of the door? The light... is a clear, yellowish light, nothing special... still my heart clenches under a sense of worry as I see it. Fire vivosaurs... can produce light. And I am sure the others are able to in some form, but their flames are the easiest way to. Torn... was red first, and then blue. I have known few other fire vivosaurs, but for the majority that I have met were red as well. My mind goes to Sunny—she is yellow—but water does not... produce such a light.

Oh, this is a troublesome affair... Well, no, I could simply get up and leave. Obviously someone was here, if not currently. And none of the things inside of this house are mine, merely examined and probed... It is entirely possible the owner is watching me from some bleak area, slowly and silently simmering with some sort of severity. Really the only reason I stay here—outside of my need for shelter—is curiosity. I could stay by the entrance and wait, and if I met anyone I could explain my needs to stay until the storm outside lessens.

 _BURHH_.

I jolt as what sounds like a barrel of snow rocks the wall.

Staring, wildly, I get up and I go through the door with the light, too bewildered to question myself anymore.

A narrow hallway: the left of it holds an ever narrower staircase, the right elongating and ending with a door on the side. I stare weakly: left? right? Can I not do both like I did last time..? Somehow the feeling establishes itself within me that I should take one path and go. But... why does it even matter? Is this not a mostly-empty house in the first place? Why such a weight on my head? Why such hurt in my heart? Ah... what am I doing to myself, and why am I doing it? Facing the ceiling, I narrow my eyes. Could I not... merely... turn around..?

But when I do the door slams shut with a _BURH_ in front of me. Is... no, was... Was that the snow itself? Is the snow inside? Is the snow outside and strong enough to close an entire wooden door inside of an entire wooden house? What is... the purpose of this? I step up to the recently-closed door and nudge at it with a foot. It stays shut. I suck in a breath, try again. No give. When my fingers latch upon the doorknob a strange warmth overwhelms me and I drop my hand immediately, stepping back. It felt... almost as if... someone was standing in front of me... and keeping the opening out of my reach. Like... I have to go on.

Racing, somewhat panicking now, I go for the door toward the end of this hallway and find that once again I am halted in similar fashion. I press my forehead into the wood grain. My breaths are shaky. My fingers release the doorknob and I place a hand beside my forehead, and I stay like that for a little while. Is my mind... playing tricks on me? Oh, dear... I trust I am not... not... insane. That would be... That would be... is "disappointing" the right word? Oh, goodness... oh, goodness...

The stairs, I surmise, it is. I observe then that the light I previously caught flickering resolves from the upstairs instead of beneath the door, so perhaps I should have gone this way anyway. If I was searching... for the light. While dim, it beckons, like fingers waving me on... and I must admit it is warmer in the chamber following this light than staying in the entranceway. But... does that make it... sound? Sane? I... I worry. Oh I worry. But I continue on as if this no great fault of mine, traipsing up the stairs, each one cracking slightly louder than the last until I reach the ninth and it splits open and I trip into the tenth and eleventh, my head hitting the twelfth.

"A-Ah..." My soft, chilly voice gasps out from me. A small knot of pain expands from my chest. Pulling my hands out in front of me, I ease myself to my feet, and I make my way up the steps, pace slowing.

I suppose... that was.. my next warning. Hah. My chest compresses as I cough once more. My head... pounds. Although that is what is to be expected after my second fall in close sequence. Of... course.

So why is it that I go on? I am... unsure. The light is... calling... for me. Which is as bad as any a reason... but I see it... and my feet step: closer, closer, closer... and there is a strange pain in my heart, beneath my chest, beneath my bruises and bludgeons... my aches and feelings... the strange pain compels. Oh... what is going on inside of me? But still I move on... and on... and on...

Up the stairs and past a small opening—another slammed door—into a round chamber atop the rest of the cabin. Another door lies beyond this, and this one, I note, rushing toward it, is tightly shut like the others. The one behind me I believe no doubt to be locked as well. So... here I am. Here I have come. The light, blinding in pieces, shimmers from beneath this final one. I reach down toward it... my fingers shining...

When a voice pricks the air... softly, quietly... creeping upon me...

 _And who might you be?_ A gentle lilt, twisted... sloping upon me... from beneath the door... I sink into the floorboards, press my hand against the bottom edge... the light so bright... overwhelming me... the voice raising, raising with a pressure in my head. _I would like to hear of... a name, in the very least. You do know that, don't you..?_

My head... fuzzy... Who is... Who are... Who am... am... I... I am... Ah, it... something feels...

 _Rupert_... Like pulling in a breath, like raising one's head out from heavy waters, like seeing the world anew for the first time... Auh, what is this pain... I shake my head and I raise myself, planting my fingers upon the wood grain in front of me. I take my anchor, my name, I take Rupert and I forge onward. _My name is... Rupert—but may I ask—who... are you? Who is it, you with... such an endless, encompassing, eternal light? Such a... bright... yellow light? Who... are... you?_ And why... does my chest... ache me so... greatly?

I sense the light observing me from behind its closed door. I pull myself together, steel myself in wait. My heart... beats painfully... inside of my chest. Somehow... I feel as if... this is not the first time something like this has... has occurred. _You dare ask for my name in turn?_ My lips I press. My breath I hold, then release. _Why. I could tell you... if you are so interested. It has been some time since my name has been heard by somebody else... So listen well, would you please?_

What is... this? Who? She—I detect a more feminine voice—She is... picking into me... pushing against my... self. No—No—I shake my head—steel myself—hold tight to my sensations. And then she tells me, quietly, _Illit. Be sure to remember that now; I dislike repeating myself._

 _Illit..._ Smooth, and dull, but... blunt, all the same. _Illit, why do you hide behind walls, behind doors? What... are you, Illit?_

 _Your lover._ She must catch the shock on me because then she bursts into a round of laughter: _Paaahahahah! You believed me? Of course I'm not. Besides by now it must be obvious I am not of your dimensional plane. Unlike you, human boy, I have no language to construct outside of telepathic conversation. But a scaled and reptilian-minded being. Or feathered, or mammalian—ah, you understand, yes? Rupert._ Another pause. _The way you reacted to my lie... Ah, does it mean you have one? A lover?_ Quietly. Teasing.

I try to swallow my flush. _I-I do._ Her giggle fluctuates inside of me; I try... not to keep it from halting me. _She is—_ of course— _kinder, much kinder than you are._

 _Well?_ Another little laugh. She is beginning to remind me of Todd... or Luk, even. _What do you expect? I am a cranky monster. Ohhh, but of course your little Dina is kinder than I am. Uh?_ I pause. _Yes? Don't you agree? I see her in your memories—oh, what a little smile. The scales are... interesting, I admit, but I suppose one cannot refute that humans are born as flawed beings._ My fingers tap against the door.

I whisper, _So are you flawless... Illit? Does this make you... above us?_

 _Aaah, silly Rupert._ Gentle pressures of light against me: her thick, yellow light. I can hardly see anything past its viscous embrace. _You do realize what I am, don't you? Ohhhhh,_ dearie, _don't pull a blind eye to this._ Oh. _You could not escape forever: you do realize this, yes?_ Oh, oh... _There are so many of us... and your precious little Dina's... host... is so... so loud. You see? And... with her strength, lulling us in waves, well, who can expect us to depart? Your human emotions are so... controlling. So powerful, so_ flagrant _. Mmmmh? It's... merely expected,_ dearie.

She is... she is... _You are not Mistress, Illit: Mistress is an entirely separate creature from you. And... I-I know you have never possessed a vivosaur._ Ancient... fiend. _You... cannot, can you? Only us weak, susceptible,_ flawed _humans. Vivosaurs... are too similar... to your kind. Or either way it is only us you can take control of... but even you are overwhelmed._ My heart... beats wildly... in my chest... Oh, calm down... oh, calm yourself, Rupert... Please hold steady... Please hold steady...

 _I see that you are well-versed in our kind, Rupert_ , her voice a loud purr. _Yes. I experience your unexpected pain as an old friend sneaks into your body... snatches your soul. Oh! And who is it that has come after you? And_ who _is it slammed into the snow by the creature who is not you? Oh, who is it Zongazonga torments? Dina, is it? Mmmmh! How... delectable! And that is not your final time, now is it?_ Purr, purr, purr. _Nooo. You don't even know his name? Well it's unimportant._

She turns toward me; I cannot even see her but feel the channel of energy swoon in my face. _Ruuupert? You're not strong, are you?_ I cannot feel it but I know, oh, I know she is in my head, sifting through memories, simmering beneath me, hoping, wishing, waiting for an attempt to... bite. _No... You're not strong enough to save that girl of yours, so she lays wastrel at your feet, now doesn't she? Yes! Oh, yes! She does! You can't do a single thing right, no? No you cannot! There go you! Faaail here! Faiil there! Fall!_ Giggling. _Fall, fall fall!_

Pause.

 _I'm strong. Rupert, I'm very strong. You know that. Now don't you know that? You know that every last one of us.. is strong. A kind of strength you can't seem to summon, can you? Your emotions reveal themselves right in front of your eyes; you can't pull a demon out of someone else's body... Mmh... what would that be... faith? Spiritual energy? I don't know, but ohhhhh,_ dearie, _you know you could use me. We—We could save your Dina._

That's it. That's what it is: I feel as if this has happened before because it _has_ happened before. The last time... I nearly killed her. And the time before that as well... Both times, I was... I was so... close. Dina. Oh, I was so close... Zongazonga wanted to kill her when he realized his daughter—the daughter he so nearly killed himself those megayears ago—and I—or the creature inside of me—could see no end to its... destruction. I suppose it fed off of my own anger, my agony at the sight of desolation... and so nearly I murdered the opposite of my harbinger of pain. So... nearly.

Rupert... what have you learned... after your last excursion with beings too powerful to comprehend? What... did your last excursion teach you?

I take control of my will... and I take a step away. It brings memories to my father, to the man who tried to take me himself... to the beings before and after who will pull at my heartstrings in their directions... and I take my step back.

Good, good... I suck in a breath, hands shaking in front of me. Good... Rupert.

There is a piece of me that reaches and tries to take hold of the monster inside of that door... a piece that pushes, and pushes, and pushes inside of me... a piece of me that has yet to learn the more desperate I grow, the less control I have over myself, the less power I will ever be able to use... the less of... a protector... I can be, a gentleman for my... sweet lady.

There is hissing from inside. It draws me back to the moment and I dodge back to the door—still shut—oh—still _shut—_ and I step back from the hot metal on the knob and I—I—I see a window. Oh, no, I see a window and I realize that unless I want to let this thing take me for its own then I am afraid that window is my exit. A... A _window_. Oh, soil my pride, it's the window or the ancient, you bloody fop: pick your bloody poison.

Shaking fingers snatch the lock and work and work and work and the window pops up and open and a shaft of snowy air brushes me as I knock back the shutter and sweep out of the window, out of the room, and latch my heeled feet into the edges of the wood wall, and climb, climb, climb down. My head aches and my heart aches and I just ache, ache, ache, but I go on without stopping until I reach the snowy bottom. Breathing, breathing, shaking hands. Oh... Oh, I made the right choice, I made the right choice: she is in the back of my head crying as the ancient ate her from the inside out and took her from me but I know I made the right choice. Resting my head against the wall, I take in breath after breath after breath until I get up and move away, quickly.

The storm has blown itself out. In however many hours my trial has taken me, there I lie with the air open, cold but open, and I release shaking breaths accordingly. Oh... Oh thank goodness...

Her name comes to my lips: Illit... Illit... Illit. Sending light upon my figure, nearly sucking me into her burning void. Nearly taking me herself. But... no. No. I did not... let her. Strength of will, I tell myself, breathing deeply: strength of will. That... is... something: right? That is something. S-See, I tell myself, s-see? You are not... useless. To her. To... To yourself. I sigh, pulling my arms around myself, just... breathing.

Not... useless. Not... useless. Good... Good...

I stride, careful, through what feels like a different world than the one of last night. A sun shining from somewhere behind my head, open skies, shy clouds streaking the air. My fingers I pull up from my sides and release in the openness, and I breathe, relieved, oh, relieved.

When I remember: Luk, Todd... Mistress. Gyntis's words floating through my head, telling me that someone who's fallen in love with someone else cannot possibly be full of hate. Maybe... n-not. Maybe not. I don't care. I'm done thinking about it. It is... finished. Finished, finished; oh, Dina, I promise I will come out of this a stronger person... No more ancients for me. No more. Not even... if... I do not even know: no more. And that is all.

But... Luk will... Luk will... Will he care? H-Hah... No. No, stop doing that to yourself... you... oh, you idiot: he has followed you around for years. Of... course he cares. So then I stop, in front of the cabin: will he be... Oh, how will he react to my slight? I... Just like Dina, I do not know, and for a moment fear seizes me.

That... is when... I look down from the sky... and I see him. Storming up the hill, hands furled into fists. I cannot tell what is in those hazel eyes of his... but I think he is... angry. My heart clutches a second time and I begin to step back but I force myself to stop and I look into those stormy hazel eyes as he steps closer, and closer, and closer. Behind him and beyond I catch hints of... vivosaurs, of a certain dress-donned boy. But it is Luk who comes marching.

When he catches eye, he goes faster, faster, feet channeling through snow, fists flying in the air. Closer, and closer, and closer until he lies in front of my face, his pinched, eyes taut, small... tears... in the corner of his eyes, the tears I dismissed earlier.

Panting, panting, and then he cries: "You IDIOT!"

One hand unfurls and— _shhhwack!—_ slaps me across the face. I start back at the impact.

My head lowers. I let his words hit me next. "WHY?" Silent. "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" I let him hit me with his screams, again and again, as his voice cracks. "DON'T YOU REALIZE, RUPERT—DON'T YOU REALIZE?" My head lifts and he goes quiet.

My eyes... struggle... to reach him. I ask him, gently, "Should I... be hit again?"

His hands jolt. I eye them warily, taking in a breath. Gently, gently. When I look up to his face again, the tears he tried to hold back arrive. His hands go toward me, and they open and he embraces me... tightly. And he cries.

"Stop... it," rasping, sobbing, "stop... pushing back..." His arms... tight around me, fingers intertwined behind my back. "There... are people out there... other than her..." gently, gently, "and... I don't want you... to die... Rupert." Those hazel eyes, blurring, search into me, wait for me to say something, say anything... or to push away again.

But I stay. I... stay.

I think... he is pleased. Unable to show it, he is... crying... so hard, but I can feel his stubborn warmth sink into my cold body, and he is not crying so hard as he was seconds ago. I wait, quietly, unflinching to the best of my ability—which is not as best of an ability as I wish—for Luk to cease his tears. His voice is weak, and he tries it multiple times, but after trials in which each attempt is weaker than the one prior, he gives in. And he waits too, wheezing, sobbing—his cheeks flushed, though perhaps not as... ah... red as mine. I-I was never... acquitted... with physical touch...

Luk wipes hastily at his eyes, stepping away from me; and then he turns and he tries and succeeds a grin. "So uh." Points at me. "So you didn't... run away this time."

"N-No, I did not," I mumble, head down again.

"Heeey..!" He steps toward me, boots crunching in our trodden snow. "Don't gimme thaaahaat... Ruuperrrt..!" Until he stands just in front of me again. "Uh. Did the hug bother you?"

Well I presume lying would not get my any closer to Luk. "S-Slightly." Blushing again. Dear goodness... "B-But only slightly. I-It was alright." He... surprised me, when he lurched into me and... did that. I-In all honesty I thought he was going to hit me again. Though from all of my aversions maybe I needed the strike... like an awakening. Besides... Luk is not similar to me: he was always more of a hands-on person. Grabbing coattails, grabbing arms, grabbing hands, grabbing... me. Luk rather enjoys hugs... now doesn't he?

Then, I wonder... why he is so persistent around _me_ , for I am nearing antonyms of him. Perhaps... he is attached to me, after our childhoods. Being a servant... it is possible that seeing something broken gives him purpose: to fix it. I-I do not know. "A-Are you sure? And—Oh. Oh that's right I... I like... I..." He raises a hand to his face, the perpetrator, and he groans. "I... my hand... I hit you! Oh my gosh, what the heck am I?"

A flicker of a grin passes me. "You are alright. It... did not hurt all that much. I was more... surprised, than anything else."

"Y-Yeah!" he chimes, "I was too! I... I didn't even know I was gonna until I—until it just..." Shaking his head. "Dude, I'm sorry! I was just... so mad and stuff when you disappeared like that! And... And in the middle of a freakin' _blizzard_ , you... you pompous dolt!"

The smile... won't go away. Shyly I glance at the ground. "Yes... You're right, Luk. That was an act of... idiocy. On my part. I'm... sorry. I will... try my best not to walk into danger again." My... best.

He giggles from where he stands. His hazel eyes have warmed, and I feel them upon me. "Ruuupy! Don't make a promise you can't even keep!" He sees the smile... doesn't he... "But... hey, let's not do something like that again. You reaaally freaked us out. Like... really.

"But I guess now you know we ain't giving up on you! My—Seriously though, you... you scared us. W-We thought you were gonna freakin' die out there, and then we couldn't even leave until after that stupid, stupid blizzard... ugghhh... Mistress like zoomed out immediately—being water-affiliated or whatever—but she never saw you, heh. And Sunny... and well we didn't have any fire vivosaurs... Y'know," he murmurs, and I realize he has lost sight of where he was going with this, "it's funny, innit? Fire vivosaurs can't take water but then they go outside in the snow and they, like, burn everything, and stuff..."

I cup my hand over my lips. It feels... so... revealing, this smile... "Dina—I... ah, excuse me, if I may—but... Dina once got herself lost in the snow... and lost consciousness of the cold. I... cannot believe I did not recall this before my own excursion, but Torn helped lead me to her and... oh, goodness, she was so... cold. But... Torn dealt with the cold fine."

Why are we talking about this? It's... a little ridiculous, now that I stop and think about it.

"Duuude..." I look up. Luk is grinning sloppily. "I swear... you have sooo many stories about this one girl. It's... I wouldn't say it's sad, uhhh... devoted? Yeah, you've got, like... all kinds of devotion. Heh!" The smile goes sidelong as he turns. "To be honest, I'm... a little jealous. Naw. Real jealous—hahahh... I've known you for so long, and then she swoops outta nowhere and... Rupert, I've never seen you smile before." Self-conscious, I drop the hand from my face.

While still light, his voice has lowered, deepened. "Really, though... I guess you were just so young... and so confused, and sad... you just never were able to again. It's stupid, but I got it in my head that if I tried really, really hard, maybe I could do it. Hah!" Oh... Luk. "But... I mean, you're smiling _now_ , so it's not like I've... ruined you, o-or anything. I just... wanted to be... the one who... Heh... y'know..."

Luk... Oh, my mind rushes into premises, possibilities, promises, anything that will get the sadness out of his tone. I was always so accustomed to his cheery roar that once he fell I... I seem incapable of responding accurately. C-Come on... Rupert... this poor boy, your honest-to-goodness childhood friend, is breaking down in front of your eyes... If you've known him for so long, why do you struggle so to give him comfort?

The answer... is obvious. But the answer makes me feel sick... sick of myself, so I brush past it.

"Um..." His eyes dart toward me, caught in their confusion. "You... You could make Dinu smile for the first time."

"PFFFF! PAAaaahaaha..." My heart releases from a pressure I hadn't even realized was there. "Dude! I'm not asking for the impossible! That surly _thing_ isn't gonna smile for friggin anyone, much less her younger cousin's dork friend!"

I sputter, cheeks heating. "Luk, you are not"—his eyes arc into my face—"a-a... dork."

Somehow, the smile, upon its return, is much larger now than it was mere moments ago when his laughter was still in the air. "Naaah, Rupy! You don't get iiiit! I totally am! Oh, oh! Remember the time when I asked you if you'd ever done i—"

"Luk," I mutter, "let us not include your kinky thoughts with this converation, yes?" Dare I say it, there he is, as much of a dirty-minded thing as the last time I saw him... when Dina was still here. He asked his previous nearly-worded question to her and... well. She did not know... what he was talking about. Luk...

"Heehee! Alright, Rupy." A dangerous lilt in his eyes warns me as he mutters, "But maybe next tiiiime." Oh, I wish I had the impulse as he did to slap that mutt across his face...

Soon after, as if this was a signal, the softer footsteps of soaked slippers in snow alerts us to the presence of a red-faced Todd. His hands, chapped, clutch his dress like release will kill him, and the little ribbon tied in his hair has nearly gone undone. Before the brunette has a chance to catch his breath and say anything, Luk twists a tannish finger into his curly hair and ties the ends of it back into place, smoothing it down. I stare at him and he giggles cheekily, waving me down.

"Hhh...Hooo! Wow, that was some climb! I-I...ahhh, no wonder it took me so long to get the urge and look up here for you, waahh..." Todd lowers his head, breathing hard. Luk is still giggling.

"It is alright, Todd—"

"Yep! I smacked the stupid right outta Rupy, so it's all good now!"

Todd mimics Luk's cheer, lifting his hands in the air. "Yaaaaay!" Then he pauses. The narrowing of his eyes worries me... "Rupy, can I smack the stupid outta you too?"

"No."

He whines and I am going to believe that he is not serious.

After him comes Mistress, practically leaping into my side and then lowering her stature until she is safely able to. She rests her head on my shoulder—in my arms—and tells me, _D-Don't do that again, dearie._ So I remember again that of course my mapo queen would feel pain in my parting... and of course it was... stupid of me to dart off like I did. O-Of course... it was. Why I ran... I cannot be completely sure. I was hurt—my pride, certainly, was hurt. But that was... not very rational of me... to... well, run away like I did. Oh, goodness... how _childish_ of me.

 _I'm sorry, Mistress,_ I murmur, patting her head. _How foolish..._ Then, lifting my head from her, I note a few other familiar faces trotting toward us. _Did... Did they all come?_ Why would... _Why did all of them come as well? I would think that... after all I have put them through, they would not... continue following me._ Because... on a level, I could understand the thinking Luk went through on his way: I had known him for almost all of my life... we shared some sort of a bond. And Todd had already grown to liking Luk, and... he... well, he knows me. He has for some few months now. And he knows Dina... and I know Dina... so it is only to be expected.

But... truthfully, I have not... treated my vivosaurs... all that well.

Mistress, tittering, lifts her head as well. _So... well... I mean... Yes, Luk and Todd took who they could, and I of course came willingly... but, ah, dearie, Tessa ran off. I think she's a little... errm... sick of how you get. I-I mean... as trying as you can be, dearie... she can be trying too, s-so don't go too hard on yourself over it, yes? There is always today... and, and you can do better today!_

 _That is... alright._ I shake my head. _She does not have to stay by my side... if she sees no reason to. Besides, I-I_ am _rather trying, and I still see no much of a point for those who do follow me to. I... trust she is alright... wherever she goes._

There is a strange melancholy wrapping about her aura. She watches me, her ruby eye a dull sheen, her muzzle curving a small, hidden grimace. She says nothing as the other vivosaurs approach... and when I ask why they did not stay in their medals, allow Todd and Luk to carry them, she shrugs. _Mmf._ With my confusion she giggles softly but says no more.

First is—Pippy? Big violet eyes, happy grin, _Rupert Rupert Rupert!_ Why he still follows bewilders me—Have I not proved myself fleeting enough for he? It is not that... I wish to dispel of him, but one would assume after how many faults an acquaintance would cease to... believe in me. Besides... this _Dino_ fellow of his certainly is not such a flawed being as I am... yes? _Ruuupert!_ The seismo galumphs toward me, snow spewing every which way. His great feet leave craters behind him. _Rupert, Rupert! This one time, Dino's girlfriend—er, ex-girlfriend—her name was Rosie—_ ex-girlfriend? Rosie?— _she was running after him, right? But Dino was so annoyed with her, so he ran off, right? And... And he went and hid in a hole, the bloke, and she went after him and it was so dark and so so frightening, laddie!_

...so it appears _he_ was not very skilled in decision-making either. Well.

I pity... Pippy. Here he is, overwhelmed with cheerful little anecdotes of a fighter he so clearly cherished... and yet there is chance he will never see him again. His Dino. But again I realize that he is not the only one fighting... this losing battle, and when the seismo turns toward me having heard his name I look away. Gentle Pippy... why do you continue beside me? I feel as if... I am not much of a reminder... to whomever it was: my cold self.

Beside and beyond him lies a certain Gyntis with a certain look of annoyance on his snout. _You are... ugh. Rupert, you seriously need to learn how to chill._ Pause. _Gaaaaah... but then you might end up like you were before... Just find a happy medium, would you? It's rather irksome with you bumbling around like such! I was just trying... ahhh well. Don't do that next time._ As everyone else has warned me, mmh?

 _It will... most likely not happen a second time, Gyntis._ The dratted smile creeping unto my face...

 _Bah! Well as long as you're being honest_ , he mutters.

Sunny pokes her head from behind one of Pippy's feet. _Um... Hi, Rupert._ She glances off. _I found it more reasonable if I came anyways, although I must admit that your constant ditching of your vivosaurs is not much of an indicator for why I did. I'd suggest you hang onto us and at least pretend you care? Oh—Goodness, that came out a... little harsh. I'm only trying to state it plainly but I suppose that's the blunt path to it._

Blushing, I turn away again. Mistress squirms in my grip. _You're... fine, Sunny. Thank you._ So quietly I almost cannot hear it myself... but I think she is smiling now... ever so slightly. What a strange feeling...

"So! You done or what?" Jolting, I look back to stare at Luk, who has managed to squeeze himself just beside me without quite touching. "Uhhh... I guess that's the question now, huh..?" He pulls a strand of his blue hair out of his face, then doesn't release it and begins to toy with it in front of me. A small braid forms from the top of his head. "Yeaaah... What're we doing exactly? Should we... should we like... I don't even know, y'see! Hah! Rupy, come up with something!"

My eyes travel back from that boy. "Something..." The cabin stands at our backs... but I fear returning to it, even if it provides ample shelter—and food once our reserves finally collapse. "Sh-Should we go back to the castle? A-And my father... is, ah, still out there, somewhere. Maybe we should... go find them, try to... f-fight them?" I do not kn—

Luk's hand goes flying at my face and my arm jolts forward, clasping it before it hits me. "RUPY, YOU DUM-DUM!" My face reddens. "WE GOTTA SAVE TESSA!"

From the other side, I sense Todd enclosing. Mistress—merely secured by my one hand—escapes and takes my other flank and growls at the boy, but of course this does not stop her, we all know she is bluffing—and Todd gets his hit—albeit more a gentle pat—on me. To which I sigh, releasing Luk's grip. He steps back and grins apologetically, but he in the least does not... strike as well.

It does not hurt. These two are merely... exhausting. Y-Yes, already...

"Why," I mumble, "must we save Tessa?" She made her choice, did she not..? She would not come with us...

And then the missing member of my team arrives. I hear him land—a loud _PLURP_ on the snow—and then the immediate surroundings in front of me are replaced by a great smiling snout dripping icicles of water that freeze as they fall. His terrible, gripping, gnarly grin irks me... Oh, why did he have to be the one to stay... Sucking in a breath, I dare to look into those rippling brown eyes, and he whispers, _You missed me, didn'cha?_

I sigh again. _Camri, no. I did not miss you._ I hardly thought about you while I was gone.

 _Whhyyyyyyyyy?_ he cries. I let out a breath. He sneezes, then yells again. _How DARE you, Rupert! I come in to flaunt all of my beauty—held in for you—and you have naught to say to me but a sigh?! A SIGH? WHAT AM I, YOUR PLAYTHING? AM I BUT YOUR PLAYTHING, YOU RUTHLESS MONSTER?_ When he receives no response, his volume amplifies: _RUPERT, HOW DARE YOU! I AM ASHAMED OF YOU! HOW CAN YOU NOT BE PLEASED TO SEE ME, NOT EVEN SLIGHTLY?! OH, WHAT A SICKENING, SICKENING PIECE YOU ARE!_

Somehow it is alleviating to be called this by Camri.

"And," I go on, turning back to Luk, "as I asked... why go after Tessa if she would rather otherwise?"

The smile Luk gives me suggests I would benefit without his answer. "Because a certain krona already went and got her for you, and now we just gotta convince her that this was the right way to go..." Then his voice lowers—my face paling, "Plus, Camri reaaaally wanted to catch her after she ran off, and I didn't wanna find out what happens when you say no to him..."

"He has yet to act against me and I frequently retrain him," I whisper in turn.

"Yeaah," his voice takes a slightly hysterical turn, "but you're Rupy, and... I'm, uh, not."

I pause. In our silence, Camri begins to violently hack. I try to ignore this to the best of my ability and say, "He bothers with me?"

The stare on Luk's face chills me. "Oh gosh, he practically worships you." I smile weakly, fake and accepting because I cannot understand what my... m-my friend is telling me. "You have no idea how much of a show he's always putting on over you. Ohhhh gosh. I think it's cuz you're so... uh, y'know, princely. And, like... I think Camri digs that kinda stuff." Oh. "Uhhhh... you okay there, Rupert? You're looking kinda faint... I! Uh! H-How about you don't faint on top of me!"

I merely take my head into one of my hands and breathe. "He is not what you are suggesting, is he?" My answer is given in the form of a quiet laugh, and I sigh.

"But while I think you're first choice," he goes on, voice lowering even further, "he's not a... very picky guy. Um. Just, uhhh, look out when it comes to the way he's... yeah." Luk's giggles weaken. "Oh, oh my gosh... I know I can, like, get bad, but it's like he has no... filter. And he's just this... writhing mass of krona."

This is... Why did I revive Camri...

Our entire conversation came upon deaf ears because of the notorious coughing the krona has yet to cease. Not until another, another, and another—as I flinch, flinch, flinch—does he finally release what it was in his throat.

Oh, Tessa, you poor thing.

Todd delicately steps toward me. "So uh, Tessa," he squeaks.

"Y-Yes," I mutter, "y-yes. Tessa." We all continue to stare at the bit of spittle containing her bent brown medal for a little while: I unable to fully comprehend the situation and the other two alongside me. Eventually I instruct Camri—myself stuttering—to absorb his... fluid... from the medal, because I daresay none of us would like to touch that... mess. Tessa least so. He does after an amount of bickering—to what end I would rather not know—and finally I lift her unnervingly warm medal from the earth. Hesitant but fast, the pachy erupts into a smaller version of herself that fits nicely into my arms.

She spies up at me with a smoldering stare. I swallow. _So when do you plan on dropping me again?_ Oh. W-Well. _I-I'm ready! Drop me again and I-I promise I'm ready t-t-to get up and leave, with Poppy or without or... or wha-whaaaatever!_ Her southern accent has sharpened to such a point that I cannot listen to her clearly without wincing.

 _Poppy?_ I-I cannot help it, and so I ask. Pippy hearing the name, he turns as well.

 _Y-Yeah, Poppy! Pippy! Wh-Whatever! Li-Like I said... wh-whenever you plan on l-letting go..!_ Big, dark, hopeful eyes peer up and back at the seismo, who whimpers and returns to my side again.

Pippy? Well... this is not about him. Let me... oh, let me...

So I... take in a breath. _Tessa, please listen._ Her eyes falter, but she catches herself quickly. _Let me first apologize... for all I have caused you. Forgetting you once, twice... is this the third? Perhaps... words do not have the effect upon you that they do on me. But... let me apologize anyways, because I would like you to understand that my selfish, blind desires kept me from watching over you—all of you, really—as carefully as I should have._

She mutters something to that. I look up. She ceases. Mistress grunts the name _Dina_ and my cheeks flush with understanding.

 _If you... would like, you can give me another chance. Al-Although I understand if you seek otherwise. But, ah, despite their own misgivings, the others lead me to believe that they will stay even so... and as lacking as I have been in care—_ t-too busy worried over Dina— _I will... try to do better from here on. You may... instruct me... as you must... in order to do so._

Perhaps she is not affected by this either... but being so accustomed to the "princely" life, as Luk so called me... leaves me standoffish, unapproachable. I... I need to change that, if I... want to better myself. If I wish to get a-anywhere closer to _her_ , to saving _her_... unless I change myself, nothing else will change accordingly and I will be left... just as I was prior. S-So here I am. Reaching out.

The pachy I hold stiffens. I think... she was not expecting this. W-Well, in all honesty, nor was... I. But here it is... and here I am. She gently draws her eyes away from me, and with a sigh, mutters, _N-Now I feel like the villain..._ Saying... I was? Ah...

 _You do not have to come along... You can... can..._ Not that I know what vivosaurs without fighters will do. _Um. But you do not have to stay if you wish not to. I know that I am a... stubborn person. And I forget about... other parts of my life. And I easily come off as..._ I let out the word: _cruel. I can appear... cruel. At times. I am sorry... if this happened to you._ If there is anything... I do not want to be... it is cruel. But I suppose... I can act like such... if I am not careful.

Like a drop of poison, cruel, pressed upon the pachy. Tessa shakes her head, raising it, and mutters, _L-Like that! Like I'm the one who... made you a bad—nngh, stop that..._ So I am silent. _I... I'll stay. I-It's fine._ I think she has not a clue what a runaway vivosaur would do either. Find... another fighter? _But don't expect much out of me..! A-Alright..?_

 _Alright,_ I whisper, and not until she settles do I place her on the snow. Gently...

When I turn and stand fully once more, Luk presses himself against me. I begin to glance at him when Todd mutters something under his breath and points, wincing, toward the back of us... so when I turn, there, just off in the distance, at, the front of the cabin I came out of... stands a person. A walking person... walking our way.

We all watch as they approach, closer, closer, closer, and finally stop at a halt in front of us. It is... a person I have never seen before in my life: long choppy pink hair in straight, almost spiny strands, piercing golden eyes, worrisome pale pinkish skin. Upon her are a beige jacket, rather short shirt, and... shorts. H-How she gets on with these clothes is a question I cannot answer... when I look into those eyes and pause again and realize that no, this is... a boy. A boy? Why is... their gender... proving this difficult to pinpoint?

"Mmmh? Strangers, what're you doin' round here?" While the accent suggests southern origins, it has brushed with regal atmospheres and takes itself to an altogether new level. And... I-I could see either a male or a female using it... and... oh, this is irksome.

Luk bumps against me. "So I used to be a servant-boy, but now I'm more or less, ah, free? Name's Luk! That's Todd"—sticks his thumb out—"and this is Rupy! Or well Rupert. But Rupy is preferred"—bumps me again. I wince but do not inject. "We're just dolts lookin' for a place to crash our heads cuz man are we tired! Been a long day, yeah? Reaaaal long."

This character of a stranger takes a liking to Luk... Well then thank goodness it was he who started. "I see! I've got room inside if you need it. Name's Mier. Don't forget now! I hate repeating it! Alright... boys, I'm assuming?" Eying Todd.

"H-Hey, d-don't lookit me like that! There's nothing wrong with dresses! Besides, you're a pretty weird, uh"—he must be guessing—"b-b-boy yourself!"

Mier offers a sly grin. "That I am." Turning. "So anyways! Come on in! My humble abode has more than enough space for all of y'all, and your weird vivosaurs too I'm sure."

And so we go... and so I go, entering the cabin for the second time today. My worries have begun to rise—after the ancient, after that bloody cabin again—but somehow Mier gives off a trustworthy sensation... and we are rather depleted. I am, at least. Besides... now we know what exactly we will do next. While Luk may have proffered the question jokingly... we really have no aim. So at least for now there is a place.

Perhaps... Mier will come of use, too. Perhaps.

 **So we meet Mier! Pronounced me-yare (one syllable- the "e" at the end of "yare" is silent by the way just to make sure haha, I thought Mier looked weird so there you go)  
**

 **We've had a lot of Rupert chapters xD it's weird in a way, cuz Jkonna had like two by here on TSFF, and Rupert's had... more, hahahaha. It's a little difficult writing his personality at times! Like the whole Camri thing, haha, and Tessa's stuff too... But it's fun... Writing is a love-hate relationship honestly xD**


	9. Do: Sensational

**Dino: so anyways I'm just gonna casually slide on in here**

 **Droplet: -You're not very good at being casual-**

 **Dino: That's cuz I'm faaantastic at making myself known! HwAH!  
**

 **Raptin: you also are not very skilled in the act of silence**

 **Dino: LOUD IS GOOD**

 **Jkonna: BUT MY LOUDER IS -deep breath- gOODER THAN YOUR LOUD**

 **Dino: SH-SHUT UP JKKIE STOP MAKING ME LOOK BAD**

 **Jkonna: ARE YOU TELLING ME NOT TO DIGA-DO WHAT I'M BEST AT?**

 **Dino: ;;w;; why did this happen**

 **Droplet: -Yeah I'm with Din-Din here what the heck guys-**

 **Jkonna: -pouts- It's fun messing with him!**

 **Dino: TTwTT**

 **Raptin: heh...**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 9: Sensational

 _Dino_

So anyways after our little meet with Bea and Nick Nack we're off again into the water. Only this time, Droplet's not our transportation—she was _very_ clear about this—so it's Foster instead. Honestly the guy has such little showing of his emotions or whatever that we could probably ride him the rest of the way to these Cali-whatsit islands and he'd hardly break a sweat, if even. Of course, being the sappy sass she is, Droplet's gonna wanna take turns anyways. Weirdo. _Dino, you know I can hear you, right?_ Lovable freaking weirdo. Yeah, good times.

Raptin's next to me, knees up to his chest, arms around them. He's slumped his face into them like he's shy, and he probably is, poor Rapty, and Jkonna's sleeping toward the back again because she's done dealing with seasickness. I mean, I don't blame her: I was the same back when... actually, it's gonna get depressing if I keep going down that line of thought so I think I'll stop now. Ahh, what am I.

We're just chilling. Droplet's in my lap, and I'm sitting crisscrossed, and I can't tell if she's awake or not except for that one interjection of hers. _So why aren't you sleeping if you're so tired? I thought for sure that one battle with a random dude and his vivosaurs and then all that swimming before would've tired the yap right out of you, but I guess I stand corrected._

 _Mmf._ She raises one chilly eye and snorts. _My definition of tired and yours aren't one and same. You, my friend, are a human, while I'm a vivosaur._ Yeah, of course she's going to that explanation.

 _Sooo? That's not thaaat different!_ I know. I'm asking for it.

Scoff. _Dino, we've been over this._ Have we? Probably, but nothing I can remember. _I mean, first off, I'm a... you know: a gigantic 'water monster' as you used to call me, heh. Why'd you stop? I guess you got used to me. Psh._ Yeah, she's messing with me too. _Anyways, Dino, I must say that outside of physical properties, we really aren't all that similar._

 _Droplet, no! You don't know that!_ I go out of my way to lift my hands and put them over my heart. _Droplet, don't hurt me with such vile words!_ I have no idea what makes "we really aren't that similar" vile in any sense of it but I'm doing all this off the top of my head, give me a break. _I'm sure it'll work out! You see... we... we both..._ Oh, no, give me a moment. This is harder than I thought it was gonna be. _We... both... have eyes! To see each other with!_

And what do you know, hers close. _Mmmh, really? I suppose you have a point there, Dino. We share more in common than I ever predicted us sharing._ I love how she'll delve right into something as stupid as that and all I have to tell her is... well, you know. She'd respond similarly even if I got nothing, I bet. _But I'm afraid... it's not you, but it's me, that will never make this work out._

 _Dropet, no!_ So I gasp. Raptin shoots up beside me and judging by the fake pain I've plastered all over my face he must be so done with me. _Nooooo! Droplet, don't say that! We... We have so much potential! I-I know it!_ That voice crack hurt to fake. How about I don't try it again. _Just give me a chance, would you? Oh, please, Droplet, please!_

She rolls her eyes. _Y'know, if Pippy heard any of this, he'd lose it._ Catching my giggle, she goes on flaunting her eyelids.

 _He would totally lose it. Poor thing, hah..._ I lose track of Droplet's face and favor the sky. _I wonder... what he's up to, yeah? Do you think... Do you have a clue where he ended up? It... makes me worried. I wonder how far a storm can take him... Well, he probably turned into his medal, he got so scared or something, so then he just... got swept away..._

It hurts less to make fun of it, so I go on, quickly: _Man, what if Cooper found him? And, like... I don't even know what Cooper would do with him! Maybe... Maybe... ah, I got nothing. Nosh? She'd certainly be happy to have another vivosaur around, but after hearing my name... would Pippy follow? Like... oh, gosh, does he even know how to swim?_

 _Dino. He knows how to swim! Of course he knows how to swim! He's toted you around to a few of the dig sites, you dummy! Don't tell me you forgot about that one time at Rivet Ravine!_ Droplet, you know how terrifying that dig site is: of course I burned everything about it from my memory. Why? Oh, geez: alright, we got the mine carts, which Jkonna can't drive but tried to, not once but I think twice; then there's McJunker who made me dig up his freaking tools when he lost them or whatever; not to mention when I fell down that ditch and Rosie went after me and... ahh, yeah, let's not.

Also, wasn't there a gondola... was that what it's called? Like I just get dropped off at the bottom of Rivet Ravine, and let me say that cliff is pretty freaking high up, and they tell me I have to ride that gondola thingy all the way up to get to the freaking start of the dig site. Not that I hate heights: I think it was made of wood and... I just... didn't wanna deal with it, ulh. So, yeah. That's why we pretend it never happened. Or at least, _I_ do: Jkonna likes making fun of me about it; and then Droplet's all for bringing it up out of nowhere, as seen.

And then I realize someone is calling for me. My head whips aside and I look at Raptin, who sputters something and has to try again, poor guy. "Dino... I hear you and your, ah, krona speak"—Droplet mutters about idiot dinorans who don't say her name like a normal person—"I-I mean... you mentioned the names... um... Cooper, and Nosh, was it? Who are these people? Are they... foes? Are you worried... Pippy has been found by them?"

Somehow the thought of them as lethal monsters—even worse than the water monster kind—chokes a laugh out of me. The look I give Raptin after that has him turning because I think I'm too weird to look at now. "Naah... Wait, I never told you about them? Are you sure? Dang, I thought everyone knew." Well I guess I was wrong. But... wait. "Not even Dad told you? I thought Dad told you everything." Oop, now he's blushing. It's gonna take him a moment before he says much.

"Y-You are such a child," he mutters, still not looking. Oh, Raptin. "Dino, your father, who may I add is the dinaurian _king_ , has much more imposing propositions to attend and attune than such frivolities as discussing the social life his son concurred while still thinking himself an orphaned boy with someone as low as me."

Well. Wow. That was almost painful to hear, the amount of freaking formalities he shoved in there. "So you're saying my dad has other junk to do than talk to you about me?" The way his face tightens suggests I've wasted a sentence that must've taken him, like, forever to make up. "Aww, come on, we all know you're basically his nephew!" The way his face heats after that suggests I've said the right thing. Aw, you softy. "Are you sure?"

"Dino, would you just tell me who they are?" He grimaces, head back to the front. "Unless you tease me and seek more joy in my petty feelings than in those two names themselves."

"Raptin, ow," I mumble, "that was... that was kinda harsh." He stiffens but doesn't say anything else. Oh help me, he's right, he's a little too fun to torment. "I was just makin' sure you didn't know anything about themmmm... cuz that is a little weird. I swear I told everyone. Heck, even Jkonna knew, and she's Jkonna." Or maybe that wasn't the right thing to say. Now he's all, like, super stiff.

With a blasted glare in my direction, he turns back to the ocean. What he finds so revealing in those waves instead of my face, I have no idea. "Jkonna is also your... closest comrade, Dino. So it is only to be expected she was graced with the knowledge of this 'Cooper' and this 'Nosh'."

Oh, geez. Now he's just getting pathetic. "They aren't even that important! Baah, you wanna know? Okay, so Cooper was my childhood more or less friend—it depended on _his_ mood, _not_ mine—and Nosh, or Morn Nosh, or Ms. Nosh, or whatever strikes your fancy, was—I mean, is—the orphanage's... owner lady." Okay, why are you flinching now? I told you, dang it. Raptin, what are you?

 _What a weirdo,_ mumbles Lone from her medal.

 _You're right_ , I assure her, and that makes her get all warm and jumpy and dang it Lone—stop—jumping—Relax, would you?

Oh my gosh. Get Lone riled and all of your chances at peace are ruined. Bless her, she lowers herself in her little blue medal and doesn't go bouncing off the futabi, just sleeps. Foster snorts at this, imagining himself as some blow-up balloon or something.

He's quiet, as if paying respects for the dead. I give Raptin a weird look but he's so busy being quiet he doesn't even make note of my presence. Finally he raises his head and smiles a little sadly. "My apologies. I am sure your Cooper friend lived a wonderful life, if he was able to live it with you an—"

"Dude, Cooper's not dead."

Raptin raises his head a little more and returns to his grimace. His cheeks are all reddish again—nearing purple at this point. "I-It would be preferable if you specified this as you did with the Nosh lady." Grunts. "Now tell me, if your dear Cooper is not dead, then where is he?" Oh, Raptin. This guy.

"At the orphanage still. I think. Oh—right, he was—er, is—an orphan too. Hahhh, like his parents could just... come back to life or something." Raptin is so done with me, oh my gosh. I think he's waiting for me to stop talking again. "But after I got that letter Duna sent to Vivosaur Island—y'know, the one she used to try and pick me out... figure out if I was who she thought I was—Cooper kinda shoved me off. I mean, I guess it was a big deal or whatever, but still. Dummy Cooper."

"Does it... hurt, feeling forgotten?" he whispers.

Then I realize why Raptin was so done with me. He... didn't ask for another conversation with me pestering him, did he? If he did, there are so many other things he could've said. But he asked, politely, quietly, for a definition of two names I'd happened to forget about giving him. He wants... to know about me, now doesn't he? Gosh, then what kinda person does that make me if I'm over here being the turd I am?

Let's... try again.

"It... did." I smile softly. "A little bit. Not really. I was still real childish back then. You know." So it didn't... hurt as much as... maybe it should've. Growing up at the orphanage left me a lot of time to actually mature... heh, and I didn't do all that much of it back there. It's funny... what big of a difference it can make. So then... here I am, the weight of a dead mom and a missing and possibly also dead and was and maybe still is possessed sister... there it is. Maybe for some people that weight means severity, or age, or something, but it leveled me out more, got my head out of the clouds...

So now it's my turn to ask him what I think he's been waiting for me to ask. "Hey Raptin... did it hurt when Dina and I went missing on you?" Heh. I catch him a little off-guard, knock that righteous grimace right off his face.

Turning, the dinaurian faces me head-on. His head's completely out of his knees, his dark golden eyes gleaming. Careful with his words, he whispers, "It felt wrong. It... I was so... confused. Duna... as well. As our people awoke from the stone sleep only to find the heirs to the throne both... gone... well. You recall the state your father was in when you saw him for the first time in... how many years was it? Fifteen... sixteen... seventeen..? You were both so young. So... small." Thinking about it, his hand raises level to around his chest. I guess that's how small. With a flourish, his hand wraps back around his leg. "It was... a tragedy. First the near entirety of our kingdom, not without our queen. Next... you. It did not sit well with... king Dynal."

"Heh." I turn to the waters. Pull a hand out, stroke the waves. It's a suitable warm. Not too hot... but not cold, either. "No, it didn't, did it? Dad looked so... scary, when I saw him. And it wasn't until my second time seeing him had we found out that I was... his son. Man... all that ferocity on him... it like... blam." I gently clap my hands together. "Melted right off. He's... a lot kinder than he looks. But I think that's a good quality for a king to have, yeah..? A good quality." I cut off and hope Raptin doesn't bring it up.

"And perhaps one day"—ahhhh dang it—"you as well will"—we get it Raptin—"show that same kindness, no?" I feel like whenever I end up being king—some super long ways in the future—Raptin'll like stroll in every few hours and remind me _just_ how _similar_ I am to _king Dynal_ , no? My _gosh_.

I let him take what he does out of my intense stare at the ocean. I guess that's his way of showing he cares, but dang if it doesn't embarrass me, like, a whole lot. "Yeah um... uhh..." Raptin. "Thanks. We'll, uh, we'll see." Stop smiling. "Maybe. Uh, or something." I said stop smiling.

Wait a second.

"Raptin, what the heck!" He flinches as I turn to him. "Dude! I asked you how _you_ felt, not the entire freaking kingdom! Don't do this to meeee!"

This of course is when Droplet stirs. _Mmmmnngh... Dino, you know yelling at him won't get you any answers..._

 _Sh-Shut up, Droplet. You don't know that! If I keep trying maybe it'll work._

She snorts. _Isn't that the definition of insanity? Like... the actual meaning? Dino, you dummy._ And now she won't respond to my whining. Ugh. What a... Droplet move.

Raptin probably took some offense to the conversation, but he has yet to shut me out. Well, then again... does he ever do that? He's pretty good at living with my rambles. That's... that's nice of him I guess. Also kinda weird. "So um. Rapty—I mean, Raptin. Seriously. How did... you feel... when we disappeared like that? Errr... feel free to crash harsh realities down on me. I uh... I probably deserve it anyways." Awkward laughter. Ouch.

He's not looking at me anymore. For a second I worry that Droplet—or maybe I—insulted him or something, but there's a hint of... oh, is that... oh my gosh. Raptin. Do _not_ feel guilty. I don't know what it is but if it has anything to do with Dina's possession or our running away, I swear. "Well... yes, I did miss you. And... what is with that stare?" His cheeks flame. Oh, he knows it's coming now. "Y-Yes, I-I did wrestle with feelings of anxiety and regret when you we-went missing, s-stop with that." So I drop it... for now. "I... I missed you, both of you. Of course... You and Dina were the only other children upon the starship, other than Duna and myself... and we already had begun to know each other... so I... I began... to blame... others. Namely... humanity."

Oh. Oh... "The tacky ido—sub-idolcomps. Erasing humans, nomadistinians, everything... starting from scratch." The grief... so shiny and sad in his eyes... tugs at me.

"Yes, Dino." Gently. "Y-Yes. You were gone... and I was so young... it was the only conclusion I could readily accept. It... tore with the already-weak dinaurian connections between one another. The fault of... humanity? Could it truly be? Man and their... their..." He snatches a glimpse of Droplet. "Vi...vosaurs? Are they... the problem? Did they... take you? Hurt you? Did they come into space themselves with their strange... oh, what did you call it? Those... transportation... boxes. Vivosaur... management... vee-em-em? VMM? Those. They could transport. Did they... steal you? I... I admit, I was among the first to believe humankind... evil."

We take a glance near in unison at my sleeping best friend on the back of our Foster. Her head tucked into her folded arms, her legs bunched up by her torso, her hair in little spirals—dry now—fluttering around her face, her body.

"Well," I whisper, just as gently, "I'm happy you learned the error in that kinda thinking," because there's no other way to say it, not really.

Raptin scoots closer to me. I casually lean against him and he almost collapses, and it's funny, but it's almost endearing, the way he does it. But he eventually gets over his shock and lets me stay like that. He asks me, softly, "Dino... How in this rather large world did you meet her?"

My lips pull into a little smile. "Mmm? How'd we meet... heh. It's kinda funny, actually." Though I guess a lot of our moments together are kinda funny, actually. But it's not a bad funny, or a mean or a painful funny... It's endearing too. "Well, I was in one of the dig sites—Knotwood Forest, it's called—and... ah, what was I doing? Oh yeah. The digadigs. You know who those are, right? They're, uh... they're like... Jkonna's people. Like... they _all_ say the funny 'digadig' thingy." He's staring at me with such wide eyes oh my gosh. "Anyways. The chieftain dude—man, he's weird—more on him later—he wanted me to like go into their funny little digadig pyramid, where they stored their treasure or whatever, because the BB Bandits popped in to go steal something, so I get in and one of them beats up Droplet and the other steals her and I fall into a funny trap thing.

Those eyes. He is eating this story right up before my eyes. "So I'm stuck. No Droplet. No anything. Not too long later... I'm chilling—and I hear... this girl! She's yelling up a storm and the BBs are sorta cowering, but they eventually beat up her vivosaurs too and she ends up falling almost right on top of me! It... It wasn't very nice of her!" I pout at the sleeping Jkkie. "She kept stepping on me, meanie. So anyways once she got up and I stopped tripping over her hair, we more or less introduced ourselves." Lots of yelling. Oh yeah. "And then we found a BB bag—dummy—and inside of it were... a few fossils. And they had a portable revival machine, so I guess they were looking for some tough vivosaurs. Anyways we revived us a Pippy and stormed the guys good and it was...

I look back at her.

"It was kinda funny. I more or less ran into her the next few times, and then she went missing for awhile—actually re-became a digadig, if that even makes sense. Her... people were kinda biased, and Jkkie's had it hard... So uh. I guess she's met Dina at some point there? Anyways. Unimportant. Jkonna came back and... well, I realized I'd missed being around her. So now we're more or less always around each other." She's my best friend for a reason.

Raptin looks away shyly. His fingers are fidgeting. I can tell he's going for a real formal monster of a question. "So if she has had to reapply to affiliate herself with her own people... why are they a 'people' at all? It does seem... rather biased." Oh that wasn't too bad.

"Mm? Yeah, they are pretty biased. But I mean... the ancients were really starting to wake up around then or... I dunno. Jkonna's parents... died when she was... kinda young. Not as young as me when... y'know. But it, um... it was a thing. And it happened. And it... hurt her. A lot. She never got along with them—I mean, lookit that rebel—but... that doesn't mean she _wanted_ it to happen... right? H-Heh. She's been through... a whole bunch of nonsense." I take in a breath. "She... got hurt a lot. And it hurt so much she ended up hurting other people. But also the chieftain was biased. So... Oh well. She's... I think she's happier with where she is now, and she's not in that mess anymore. So.. it's better."

Raptin's giving me a weird look again. I try to ignore it but it's really really weird. Finally he asks, "Dino..? But if she means so much to you... then would you not mean so much to her?"

I think my ears are red. I-I think they are. It feels like it. Ahh, this is so freaking weird. "I-I don't know. M-Maybe." S-Stop looking at me like that. D-Dang it, Raptin.

"Hmmhmm..." A soft little laugh. "Dino. You do not even have to say it. By the way you speak of her alone... and the way you look at her... it is obvious that you care. And... Dino, how far has she followed you to? Your... if I may... you, ah, know." Yeah. Depression. "She followed you then. Or perhaps she took lead... I cannot tell. The two of you... are quite the pair, no?

He pauses, eyes tilting toward mine. I think about leaving my spot by his shoulder but that'd probably insult him and I'm just getting kind of uncomfortable, honestly, it's not that I want him to get all upset or anything. "If I did not know any better... I would guess that..." Oh.

Before he can finish I try to start talking, to drown it out, and my cracking mess of a voice gets him to halt. That concern ices my blood. "I um... I-I know. I know sometimes it might look like that. Be-Between the two of us. I... get it." I swallow. "But it's not that. It... can't be."

His confusion... Blushing harder, I keep trying not to look at him and he probably thinks I'm just in denial but I swear, oh I swear, I'm not.

"Dino... why? Why can it not be... 'that'?"

Still not looking. It's a little hard to. "Because I think... I think at this point... we'd both just get hurt. If something like that did happen." Still staring, still confused. Hoo... let's try this again. "See, Raptin... It's... It's how I am—or... how I was. Once." Memories... oh gosh, memories. "You know, um... back when I was... um. Immature and... stuff.

I think Raptin's trying to look now, but I really don't wanna look back, so I just keep on pretending that he isn't. "You didn't see much of... how I was then. Did you? Well, maybe a little bit... You know, Raptin. I used to act a lot on... impulse. And I've always been the, ah, absolute best at making fun of other people... and picking on them sometimes. I don't know. It's something that... just sort of happened. A lot.

My smile's weak. "I guess I... wasn't always the greatest person."

No. No... not really. Ouch. That hurts a little to look back on. I mean, I grew up with hardly any restrictions, though you'd think my false belief of having two dead parents would knock some sense into me. Maybe I always knew, somewhere... that none of it was really... real. Well that's no good for me, now is it? Oh, what an... idiot. Raptin's still looking at me, trying to catch some piece of my attention, but the longer he stares the more nervous I get until you think he'd realize by now that I'm not gonna freaking look back. I just... can't.

And I've lost my voice, too. I lost... my will to speak. Too nervous, too... many thoughts. Too many memories, about the junk I did and the junk I went through back then, and the junk Raptin knows I'm gonna tell him if I can just find my freaking voice again. And I want to. It's... important, I wanna think. I'm just so... so nervous. It's all... building up inside of me... I'm so nervous.

Droplet stirs again from her spot on my lap. _Dino... goodness, are you thinking about when we all came together again?_ She can tell. Ugh, she can _tell_. She's making me even more freaking nervous... _Hey. I have problems too. And Raptin just told you all about his._ She's also not helping. _Oh, I can tell; goodness, you. But you weren't... a monster. Or anything. Right? Jkonna wouldn't befriend a... a monster. You weren't a monster. Really. Just... you. And now you've changed, so you look back and you're like 'wow, I was an idiot,' and maybe you're right. But you aren't now, are you?_

 _I dunno_ , I mumble, _I think I'm still pretty stupid._ So she snorts, and she tells me to suit myself, but to get over it already, or whatever. Maybe her words, little blunt objects, don't quite hit me right, and where they do they hurt, but I can feel a surge of heart in them too. She's trying. He's trying.

So I take in a breath, and I start again. "It, uh... It started with her. You saw her, didn't you? Rosie. She has to be the most... pink-affiliated creature I have ever and will ever meet in my life. She's... funny like that." Little bit. "And when we met, she got a taste of this tall, bold weirdo who was yelling at all of his opponents even though he'd already lost, like, three times. Ha-Hah... Oh man."

So many air vivosaurs... and all I had was Droplet and myself. And I'd cleaned that skull of hers so poorly... like, I almost shouldn't have been able to revive her, but it worked, and she was out, and we went off to certain doom in Greenhorn Plains, where literally every other vivosaur is air affiliated... and what do you know, air beats water. My water monster had _all_ kinds of fun there.

"So Rosie found an interest in that. I think she likes people... who can stand up for themselves, because she's never been so good at that herself. You've met her... haven't you, Raptin? She's so... dainty. And little. And her voice is so squeaky... and if you look close enough, and if you get to know her well enough, you'll notice that as much as she tries to put up a front... she's scared of rejection. Of loneliness." Such a precious... little thing.

Raptin, stop looking. I'm sorry but it's not gonna happen. "And she followed you... Dino? Your... big, bold self?" He leans back, musing. Without his shoulder for support I casually flop and support myself, rolling over, sitting up again—we catch eye contact for this one horrible second and my face is hot. "You do not appear as... boisterous as you suggest."

I giggle, turned away. "Yeah. Because I'm not... not really, at least. Not anymore. You should've seen how sure of myself I was... iiit was pretty bad. I didn't care if I lost three times! I was gonna fight and win this one! Hwah, hwah! Take that, stupids! Anyways I lost all three times and that didn't knock me down a peg. So you know. Rosie... liked that sense of strength, I guess. That I was... sure. That I was so chill about my failures, as small as they were in... well, in comparison to all the other ones I've made." Let's not talk about my failures. "But either way it doesn't matter: she took an interest, and when that girl takes an interest..." My arm throbs slightly. She wasn't as strong as she thought she was, but that isn't saying anything, it was still pretty bad.

"So... yeah. Rosie became my friend, more or less. Well. She didn't stop following me around." No, never did... that crazy pinky. "We went through a lot of dig sites together. I didn't accept her presence until we got stuck in that hole in Rivet Ravine. Ulgh. We lost our shoes in there. It was real dark..." I shake my head. Not that I even wear shoes anymore. Scales are... wonderfully tough. "Then... one of the BBs kidnapped her, so I went after her... because she's my friend. And I didn't want her to get hurt or anything." Though I admit that I didn't have her best interests up front. It was more Diggins yelling at me to go get her. Also Pippy, because Pippy has morals.

"When I saved her..." Oh, gosh. My chest tightens. "When I saved her... Raptin, she kissed me." And I didn't know what to do about that... no, not at all... So I sort of made a joke out of it. She never mentioned feeling insulted by that, how I never took her affections seriously, not as much as I should've, but I feel it inside of me... I feel my losses.

The way I must look communicates something with him that I hadn't been able to tell him before. Those soft old rose eyes darken. His head lowers. His hand gently grazes my shoulder, and he murmurs, "I am sorry, Dino."

My laugh is weak, too. "Yeah... I'm sorry, too." I sigh. "I didn't treat her all that well, I don't think. She liked... being around me... so much... and I mean, at some point I eventually figured it out, and I eventually decided I liked being around her too. She had a weird sense of humor that made me laugh, she... she had a problem with getting into danger... and I liked getting her out of it. Made me feel... I dunno, special... So, uh... while all of that was going on... Duna."

"Oh," he mumbles, more confused than he's letting on, "Duna."

"Yeah." I close my eyes. "Duna."

Harei's awake. I'm not sure when it happened, but I feel her mind probing at me, then at Droplet too, taking in little morsels of our conversation. Dissatisfied, she wriggles out of her medal and plops on next to a sleeping krona. Those sharp dark eyes of hers press into me, then into Raptin. So she sighs. _Are you talking about sad things?_

 _Ummmmmmm. Maybe? A little bit?_ But... But just a little bit. Not really.

 _But... why? Dino... why..!_ Oh, gosh, stop pouting, would you? You're making me all nervous again.

Blushing, I mutter, _Cuz... Cuz like... sometimes it's important to talk about sad stuff. Because... there are things important enough to talk about sad stuff over._ No, no, my eyes totally didn't just wander over to Jkonna, I don't know what the heck I'm saying. _And those important things need it, those sad talks... because without them, maybe they'll never figure out about something... how do I put this... Wrong, I guess? Something wrong?_ Not the sleepy face, gentle breathing, small smile. N-None of that. _Because if I don't talk about it, then everyone's gonna think I don't know what I'm doing._ Not like I actually do know though, n-not at all o-or anything.

She pauses, big ourano tail shaking, catching sunlight. From the waves, from the sky. Big, open, sunlit sky. _You're not very good at making sense, Dino._ Sh-Shut up. _I-I-I just... You talk like you have a direction, but then you don't, but then you pretend you don't when you actually have something meaningful to say!_

 _I'm not very meaningful!_ I squeak, _Harei, let's be honest with ourselves!_ She pauses, head cocked. _C'mon, what was the last thing I said that actually meant something to you!_

Oh no. She's looking at me like I'm about to lose. Gaaah. _You're trying to indirectly tell me that Jkonna means enough for you to want to explain why you act so weird around her! Or... something to that sense!_

 _Harei, you make it sound like I'm in love with her or something._

Raptin. No. Stop that. _Bad_ Raptin, _bad_ , you freaking—"Dino, are you sure?" Please stop smiling. "How can you be sure that... she is not someone you do not wish to be romantically inclined toward? I know... you fostered feelings for Duna. And feelings for Rosie. But neither of them are here with you. Not... like this. Not now. I... ah, it took me time, but I accept that my sister is not of... here... any longer. So you can as well, surely? Besides... while I did think you and she would suit each other well"—ugh, I knew it—"what about Jkonna..? Who is here? Who came with you, and has yet to stop following?"

Stop. Just... stop. I'm gonna keep glaring at you until that smile goes away, but it won't freaking go away. Ugh. I hate this. "I can't! I'm telling you, Raptin, I can't! I'm trying to tell you but it's... it's hard stuff! S-Sad stuff!" Maybe if I'm loud enough it'll wake up Jkonna and then they'll all _shut up_ about freaking _shipping_ us.

Wait no. She's not feeling well. Waking her up wouldn't be nice. Ugh, dang it, Jkonna, why aren't you ever around when I need you the most? Oh and... ugh, never mind, that's a lie too: months of depression and guess who was always there? Oh, _gosh_. I give up.

Finally his grin disappears. "Sad... stuff, as you so say. Dino... you ceased after you mentioned your kiss with Rosie." I flinch. Sorry. "You have yet to join this with... my sister." Yeah... um... well. I guess I can't stop now.

"So um... your sister." I take in a breath. "Duna." She was... not that different from Rosie, now that I think about it. "I remember when I figured out that her human hologram wasn't real—hah... that was so weird. I was so confused, I—wait. I was there too. Why didn't mine malfunction?" Actually, of course Raptin doesn't know. "Never mind. At least we eventually figured out I wasn't some human. I mean. All respect to humans, I'm just not an actual one or... blaaaah." My tail loudly _whumps_ against Foster's flank, and he winces quietly. "So... Duna.

What happened... "After we more or less befriended each other, both of us having no idea I actually knew who she was before all that—and the other way around, too—I... don't know. I kept... seeing her... running into her, then eventually it became intentional. And then... she helped us after she realized it was me... and, I dunno. She was tall." Raptin's face screws up. "I dunno! Like, Rosie's short, Jkonna's short, but Duna was tall, and I liked that." She was only a couple inches under me. It was nice, okay? It just _was_.

"And then... at some point... I guess _she_ kissed me too." And I made fun of that, too. At least on the inside, if never directly at her. I just didn't understand. I know. Childish, stupid, whatever. I... I really didn't. "And then we had to fight Guhnash, and I was allowed to take one other person with me... and my choice was between, like, everyone, but Duna and Rosie and maybe Jkonna to a lesser extent, but she told me to choose one of them, 'choose the one I love' or whatever, but Duna was nearest so I grabbed her first.

I swallow. "Now she's not here." As we all know very, very well. "And then I... I think it's around here when it all finally hit me. It's like... feelings, people. How fragile it all is. How easy it was... and is... for it, um... for it to change." And when some things change... then it's all just gone, isn't it? And when it's gone... no coming back. I-I mean, that being said, not all things die so easily, and some things do return, I guess—like Duna'll get out of her second round of stone sleep in some million years, so she's not _dead_ dead—but... there it is.

And there it goes.

Raptin winces as he watches me. He whispers, "How does this stop you? How does this... hinder... any possible feelings you have over Jkonna?" And why... are his eyes so sad... when he asks this? Ulh. It... makes me nervous.

Why is it so hard to explain? Why does... it hurt... to try? Ugh. I'm... I'm gonna do it, and I'm not gonna let some kinda pain stop me... but I just wish I knew why. I guess cuz feelings... or something. I-I don't know. My eyes go for those stupid waves as I try to think. Try to figure out how I'm supposed to tell it. How to tell it right... the right way.

"Because..." While I search, Raptin's head is turning—back to where she is. "Because, like... I..." Soft sigh. "Because there's... a whole lot of sad stuff out there." No wait. That doesn't make sense. Gah. "Because it hurts, th-that's why..!" But can they understand something like that? It's not like I can reach down into myself, pull out my pain, show it off to everyone. No. It's not something they can see. But... oh, of only Jkonna was awake right now. She'd understand, right? She'd get that... this just... can't happen. It—It can't. It just can't. It wouldn't... work.

Because it wouldn't.

"I love her," I whisper, "don't get me wrong... but it's not like that. It just... it can't be like that. I know maybe that doesn't make sense... but it can't. I'm sure Jkonna would know what I meant if she was awake right now. Right? She... understands."

Droplet's looking at me weird. A-And Harei too, for that matter. When did Droplet even wake up? There's no way she heard everything... well, unless Harei told her.. ugh... Those eyes are too much so I close mine again. They don't have to understand: this isn't about them. It's about something else entirely.

My head raises. "I think..." My vivosaurs jolt. One of them starts to ask something but I cut them off—"I think... it's protection." Now they're throwing blanks all over the place. W-Well whatever. Holy turd to their faces. "Yeah. That's... it. I'm protecting her... from something." Now they're all like from what, you weirdo? "From... I guess this." The hurt I can't show them. The stuff inside of me that so much as I feel it, I'm the only one that knows it's there. Those kinds of things. Those little things. Stuff that not even my krona herself would know about.

Maybe that's why I can't deal with it. Because I want to... protect her... from something like that. I-I mean it, too. I promised her, when we left, when we started leaving Vivosaur Island, when we started to look for my sister, I promised I would protect her. A-And I'm gonna do my best to live up to that promise. Because I... I have to. She's been through enough already. She's dealt with all kinds of moodiness on my side and all kinds of moodiness on her side... and it's not fair. And I said I would protect her.

So I will.

They're still looking at me strangely, like I've stopped making sense... but that's okay. I know what I mean. And... she'd know what I mean too, right? I... I want to believe so. I can ask her, if I really want to, when she's awake. But maybe I won't. She doesn't need to think about all that heavy stuff, does she? It's... a little much, a lot much. And she doesn't need to hear it. Maybe one day... but not now.

 _Do you think so, Dino?_ murmurs my krona. _Well... I guess what we think won't stop you, now will it? Mmmh. You're... annoying like that._

 _Heh. I guess so._ I don't know. Maybe I am sometimes. But whatever. I feel better after getting all that out. Now I'm gonna try to stop thinking about it. Also Raptin's still giving me a weird look, but I think I know what'll fix that.

"So Raptin." He jolts as I casually swerve toward him—cheeks already purple. "If you were soooo determined to get me and your sister together... does that mean this entire time you've secretly wanted to be with mine?"

Oh yeah. He didn't see that coming. With an angry grunt he turns away from me and half-yells, "Per-Perhaps! S-So what does it matter to you? There w-were only four children left alive a-and I always thought I would b-be around the children of the king anyways... s-s-so it was only natural I would ponder my future re-relationship with the princess..!"

No way, he actually thought about it..? Oh my gosh. Oh, Raptin. "What happens if she's dating someone?" I stop, smirking. "What happens if she's _married_? Ooh, ooh! I know! You gonna kill her spouse? You gonna show them, Rapty? Huh? Huh? You do it! I'll help you!"

His face is all screwed up again. "Why in the world would I d-do that? Dino..." he releases a long sigh, and then, "I would be... happy... for her. Like you would, I am sure, if she had any sort of foster sibling."

I wince. "How about we don't talk about that. The-There's no way she was adopted." Ah. No. That was pretty harsh. "I mean... maybe! But that's... that's whatever! I-I-I'm her brother! She's myyyyy sissy!" Oh, turd, I am so pathetic.

 _Yeah, well. While we're talking about it, I bet_ she _has Pippy_ , mutters Droplet. Harei mumbles her agreement, and Lone screeches something about replacement and battle royales and fights to the death and I stop listening after that last one, and I just smile like the big, freaking idiot I am.

But I think it's okay... to be pathetic sometimes. And I think Raptin, and I think everyone else... knows that too.

 **Heheh, that chapter made me kinda happy TTwTT Rupert's been dealing with some heavier stuff for a lot of his story, so writing about Dino really lightened things up a bit xD Which is good, because Rupert's heavier stuff is starting to give away too. I mean Luk can brood for only so long xD Ahhhh...**


	10. Rt: Returning Fear

**Mier: WELCOME TO MY HUMBLE ABODE**

 **Rupert: -nervous staring at the walls because walls are obviously deadly-**

 **Todd: -giggling at random intervals-**

 **Luk: dude this is... this is something**

 **Rupert: -faraway look on face- something...**

 **Luk: Psh, what are you even doing, dude?**

 **Rupert: -blushes, looking away- J-Just thinking.**

 **Mier: WELL ANYWAYS**

 **Todd: I like him**

 **Luk: I like him too**

 **Rupert: he has spoken but seven words, how does this tell you anything about him?**

 **Todd: he doesn't understand**

 **Luk: heck no**

 **Rupert: -sighs-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 10: Returning Fear

 _Rupert_

It is with a long and worrisome struggle that I win over myself the thought of entering that cabin a second time. While devoid of the once piercing cackle of that ancient— _Illit_ , as she so told me not to forget—I cannot help myself, cannot help the anxieties that cloud my mind with little cold fingers in my head. Of course there is reason for such conviction, after my first visit: but with the silence one would think this would decrease, not seize me with a burning sensation every few steps past the doorway. I try to ignore it, that and our conglomeration of shadows on the scraggly wooden walls, but I cannot help it and glance every so often in the general direction of nothing.

My heart still races with each step and it is not until the approach of the kitchen area and as Luk slams into me a second time that I manage to take control of myself into my hands. With a breath I steady, and with careful precision I press my back against the rough walls and I keep myself there for some time, chest heavy.

 _Ruuuupert?_ I start. The gentle voice does not waver. _Dearie, what ails you so? Oh, I know the cold may have bitten at your complexion, dearie, but after your red nose and ears and cheeks, everything else is so, so pale! It worries me, you know this!_ O-Oh, of course. But how does one explain..? Well I suppose if I substitute words for memory Mistress can ingest enough of my feelings without too much difficulty. But the recurring cabin in my head leaves her silent, and so I wait with my eyes nearly closed once again.

 _A-Ah. Mistress._ Her big ruby eye catches me from her guardlike position by the entranceway. _You have no need to situate yourself with my ordeals. It was... a strange occurrence, yes, but it also saved me when I was out in the snow for however long last night. So I wish to believe it alright. The voice is gone, the voice of that big light-rearing ancient has dissipated..._ Curious, I whisper, _Is it possible she left of her own will? Or... perhaps even lost so much power in her attempt to... um... collect me that she is gone?_

Pause. She gnaws at her muzzle instinctively, and upon my notice immediately halts, her heat of embarrassment touching me in little nudges. _I-I don't know. Out of all the ancients we've met, I-I guess it's possible? I just... wouldn't really know, Rupert. There are so many and their echoes of power float about on this world... and all we can do is wonder. So long as... we keep a good eye on you... I'm sure even if your, ah, friend is around here somewhere, she will remain in her place._

"Friend?" Todd's head shoots toward me, his dress clumped in layers around him.

I blush. "N-No, no friends."

Of course this Luk hears and he misunderstands and seizes this as opportunity to shove his shoulder against mine another time. "Stop lying to yourself, Rupyyyy!"

"No—I... I mean..." Now I am losing my words... ah, curses. "I am n-not talking of either of you, o-or anyone else whom you would know..!" And finding my answer satisfactory but stale, they swerve off to leave me to my quiet. Their chatter remains a backdrop to my beating heart and hasty breaths.

Brushing Todd off to his conversation, the pinkette by him swerves back around for... for—past Mistress—past Gyntis—and past Pippy—Oh. I step back, mildly appalled. "What is it you want?" He watches intently to my words. The uneasiness drags like a finger down my spine and I nearly cease, but it is like he continues to probe even after I inquired of his own purposes. "Wh-What..? Please... I merely wish to know what—"

"Mmmmh? Can't I pester you if I'd like to?" So now you speak. I avert my gaze. Those... eyes are a little... startling. Such a piercing texture of... gold. "Alright, so you don't take kindly to pestering." Please do not remind me of my krona like so. "Hmmmnn. You're... the quiet one, aren't you? Yeah. That's it. Your comrades over to the side... Luke and... Tidd and... yeah, them. That's close enough. They go on and babble their nonsense... but you're not like that, are you?" Oh, his accent... lilting and gentle yet striking in pieces: yorrr nawt _laaaaik_ thaht, arrrh _yooooh_? Something about it... is so enchanting—I shake my head, wincing.

I think Mier finds... pleasure... in my expression. Now, quietly in my head, I bicker over the prospect of while... flaunting, Camri has never rippled in such enjoyment of my pain in him. The pinkette stands a satisfying few inches above me, his slanted hair—cut at lengths diverse enough to be considered distracting—a bright compliment to the pale pinkish skin. Very faint, but blaring in one's face... and that strange twisted grin makes home on his lips.

"I am like... myself." D-Do not bristle so under his glare. "While it may be true Luk and Todd"—I sense a faint increase of strength in my voice as I recall Mier's failed pronunciation—"speak as they do... th-that does not give much to our other aspects. And... as... ah, talkative as they can be, I rather prefer their presence than to... some." Y-Yes, I _am_ speaking ill of him in front of his face. But I hardly know of him... and it is my virtue, to come off... distant as I am to strangers.

"Hmmm! You're a funny one, Rupert."

The stutter encroaches before I regain thought: "A-Am I?" I nearly add that naught a soul has ever found me any slight amusing... yet somehow the lilt on his sharp face suggests I need not. Besides... he is not truly the first. Hah... Goodness, if I am not careful I will come off a fool to this boy... if I have not already. Somehow there is a sense of a weight to his figure... and I feel that to diverge from Mier would not be a simple decision.

And those golden eyes... I see my own in his pupils, a much weaker type than those... sharp, blaring points of... hostility. Just being around him addles my complexion if but slightly. "Yes, I'd like to think so." A point of tooth reveals itself with the curl of his lip. "Funny. At least with your type of humor you're subtle enough not to take note of it yourself, mmh? Hahah... your confusion is funny too."

Smiling weakly, I turn again: facing those eyes head-on is... exerting. "Perhaps it could be so." Truly he... worries me. Even the one or ones who did call me an enjoyment, humorous or otherwise, were exceptions of their own kind. Lifting laughter out of anyone rather unnerves me...

"Psh! That _face_!" Ah... this does not help. "That... dumbfounded face of yours! Oh, you poor thing!" Wh-While I understand my lack in perception of the world, having been under the palm of my father for so long... it is not that blatant, is it? Maybe I am overly perceptive to this... boy. I-I should not allow myself to grow so... addled... in his face. But... there are advantages to being open as well. Then I wonder—as frivolous as it is to think of much longer, if I asked one of my vivosaurs, Sunny perhaps, then maybe she could tell me...

 _Mmm?_ The marple in question catches her name in midst of my thoughts. _Humorous?_ Oh. Ah. No, this is... idiocy. I-It is no matter. _Yeaaaah. I'm not going to be too blunt about it... but you're not exactly, um... funny. Pfff... no, that's just a weird thought. Besides!_ I catch Mier's eye shift as Sunny raises her voice; so he hears her as well. _You haven't even laughed for anything, yourself or otherwise, like... ever! I'll be honest, Rupert: you didn't even smile for ancients know how long... I mean, you're so... upright, and serious, and... stilted._ Snort.

My eyes draw away. _Of... Of course._ This is... n-not disappointment. Oh, ignore me. Perish the thought: I do not know what I am... thinking.

And Mier returns to my side, his small hands up and outward in the air. "What's it... with that _faraway glance_ "—the fingers shake weakly—"in your eyes? Rupert... mmmmh, you talk of some thing and then detach yourself from it. Looks... exhausting. Goodness." The eyes draw closer, and I try not to look too far into his direction. He whispers, gently, "What is it you're looking for, Rupert..? What is it you seek..?"

On the other side of the chamber, Luk and Todd find the cabinets—and the food held within. It is not until their explosion subsides that I can hear myself think again. My heart pinches as I realize they were... much weaker... than I presumed upon regrouping—no, before even that—when we first all came together, even, I never lifted even a finger to ask them how they felt... how strong or perhaps lacking they may have been. Oh, Luk in that helicopter for I cannot even say how long... suffering from unspoken things that may or may not be ailing him even now... In a breath I release my tension.

They are fine now. Re...lax.

A brief foray goes on between the cans and their contents before I finally work up the notion to ask either of the two boys: "Now that we have settled here and at least have warmed for the time being... what shall we do next?" Luk, face partially stuffed, raises a flushed head as he tries to swallow a little too early for some of his food. I lose the courage to say any more as he coughs on what he has and takes some time trying to fix what he has done unto himself.

"So um!" Fit having ended, eyes red at the ends, he starts off: "So! Like... Like you were saying!" A strange spark has entered his hazel eyes. "We gotta... we gotta... a, like... like, plan! Stuff! Do thing! I mean we probably need to chill longer than, like, five minutes or whatever but... but Rupy's right! Seriously... what next? Here we are, screwing around the place, and we don't even know what we're trying to accomplish!" I nearly mention Dina but I doubt that is what he meant so I abstain.

Mier is silent as we trade glances. Our quiet grows outside of the shifting of cans, and with it the weight in my heart—as it feels, strangely, like little grains of time drop with each passing moment, a pressure digging further inside with the length of a wavering wait. Something, anything, we were dried of process. All that mattered on my side—and I suppose the others to an extent as well—is to, of course, lift Zoazoa from the cage she has placed on... Dina. But, recalling... ancient sightings certainly have been on the rise alongside our struggle in the snow. And... that is it, no? I have never... had a reason to know what was next, what came after, what connected where... so this feeling of empty... openness... i-is baffling to say the least. Terrifying, if I were to expand... but to expand questions another level of thought entirely, and I do not think I am yet ready for that.

It hurts enough thinking outside of her. But here I am, pressing against these limits... day by day by day. It feels so... so _strange_ , truly, nothing much more than strange, to be pondering... this, I guess: life in... in general. Is that strange? Yes, I suppose so. Allowing the workings of others to create my life would not make it my life at all, would it? Then I am but the mindless doll my father wished to make me, hollow on the inside but for his own contempt. Here I am... Here I am, empty and... lost and... scared. Y-Yes. Yes. I nod weakly to myself, just to myself, but subtly: encountering the thought now, oh... help me, I am scared. Not scared enough to cry or to run or to hide, but the fear is ice in my veins and now that I feel it it is that much harder to think than it already was.

Finally a word. Small, splashing softly... at the ends of a roaring wave... of this fear. But it is enough, oh, graciously enough, to take the stress off of myself... a-and for that I am so grateful. Todd, now his head raised, the curls in his eyes, the eyes rubbed at by hands, his hands gripping for those curls so that they will stop the itch on his face, he cries, "Oh my gosh! Guys, guys! I stillllll haven't found Pauleen! Like... Like! What the hecking heck! She should've friggin showed up by now, that... that butt! Oh, oh! Ah!" He turns to me hurriedly. "Rupy, we can totally go look for her, right? Like, it's Pauleeeeeen!"

The smile returns. Understanding its origins causes pain nearly amounting to the one I found when all this fear began. "Of course, Todd. She is... o-our friend"—oh, the stutter—"as well, yes?"

"Heheh!" His beam in turn denounces mine a weak thing. "Yeah she is! I'm sure she'll be aaaaallll sortsa happy and stuff to help us figure out what we're gonna do once we have her with us! And... And maybe, once we find other people... dude, we could... we could like make an entire _army_! Like, I have no idea what we would do if we hecking got one, but, but, but we _could_ and that's the awesome part!"

His excitement is infectious. It pulls at the pressure inside of me until finally, gallantly, the strings come undone. If but for a moment, the strings come undone. That lopsided... oversized... powerful smile. I doubt I could ever manage something as... incredible as his. I fear my... face would hurt... if I tried. And maybe his does, I do not know: but it is the fact that he does it anyways that... amazes me.

I wonder if maybe the day will come when...

Oh, what a foolish thought. But it seems I cannot help it, so it does not go away, like the tiny weak smile on my face.

This I do not perish. No... this I do not. Todd raises his enchanting brown eyes and gives this little giggle, his hands out. "So... So we can go find her, right? We can... have her... like!" A burst of excitement has him jump—loudly—upon the floorboards. "And we can get her to join our _army_! Cuz we'll be _unstoppable_! With our _army_!" By this point Luk's forehead has furrowed and he slowly, carefully maneuvers his way toward the yelling boy in the dress, as if he is not a boy but a bewildered animal.

"HYAH!" A well-placed hit upon his back and Todd ceases, his face tinging with the hints of embarrassment. He mumbles around Luk and his victory that he did not know he had gotten overwhelmingly so and you-could've-said-something-Rupert- _geez_ -having-Luk-do-all-the-dirty-work.

Mier, beside me, allows a small grin, one that suggests a snobbish level above the boys more than anything else. A curiosity, I watch him as he shifts his hands into the pockets of his outrageous brown jacket—I watch the indention where his arms actually are fluctuate beneath waves of fabric. And where I look, I note an earring—hidden behind choppy lengths of that pink hair—fitted into the lobe, one of a peculiar shining gem, a second above it a black hoop. If I squint the little gem takes form and nearly resembles sockets and jawline and forehead and so nearly resembles a—"Rupert, by ancients' blood, what is it you stare at so intently?"—a face.

What... a piece of jewelry. Swallowing, I unearth some excuse—lost in thought—but that head-like entity squeezes itself into my mind, alongside a threadlike coil of wonder, of that strange golden gem so nearly resembling a face—and a such a face, so profound and heavy in bone structure.

Somehow it... entranced me. I would rather not look upon such peculiarities so I drop the notion and push forward, murmur, "Earrings?" and he starts.

"Ah! Do you like them?" Mier situates himself closer to me, close enough his warm breath is on my cheek and out of comfort I step back, but he so casually steps forward that if not for the gleam in those rapacious eyes of his I would have presumed it was mere subconscious that steered him toward me. The golden thing on his ear, the hard obsidian hook above, resembling more tooth than puncture, more tear than pierce, more bite than careful, catches my eye once again.

"They are..." Oh, I sift for the fitting word. "Suitable. Suitable... for you." I glance off, those eyes too burning, to mesmerizing for me to handle. "At least... for as much as I know of you."

Somehow I feel that this was... the right thing to say, if there is such a thing that is so... correct. "Mmmmh. Well I'd say that's enough." The hot breath, the burning eyes, the smolder of needles wrestled into my skin. I shake my head and I turn off again, nearly stepping on Sunny as I do. She senses it in me first—being right there—being practically stepped on for the umpteenth time this week—and she starts up and she is ready.

To follow? Why she would follow is beyond me but I make a quick decision right there that if she wishes to, so be it, I will not stop her. Not... this time. No.

I take in another breath, hands clasped in front of me. "Yes, well..." A sweeping glance along the area, exhausted Luk and Todd, this rather strange and nearly delusional-seeming pinkette, and I start again. "I believe the time has come for all to rest, as we have... been exposed to some harsh elements in these past few days. So I will... take my leave now."

He never did precisely tell us where to stay, but that is in no mind for me. I did not plan on searching for bedding... my mind cannot rest right now, no matter the strain I have put my body into. It reminds me of another thing, of when Dina would have nightmares and her solution was to sleep less... which of course eventually caught up with her until she crashed into her oblivion. But I am not... of such restrictions, though I do admit that when she was awoken by harsh dreams it would wake me usually, so I never slept much either.

Maybe I should. I pause then as I leave, my steps slower and I think about this. The hard soles in my boots crack against the wood like punishments, but as I ease so does the severity until almost I reach a... surer, a gentler pitch if none otherwise. And it comes to me again: maybe I should sleep. It has been some time since I actually had an undisturbed rest... perhaps the last time I did was when I woke up on the cold stone basement floor of Nomadistan Palace... when she was first gone and perhaps it was the pain or her pain or something but I was too tired to go on. If I keep at this it is possible my strength will finally waver at a poorly appointed time, like while I trudge through any other blizzard... then I could die. Again... I would toss my life into the current as if it held no value.

Does it?

I cannot tell. Not now. I would rather think of other trivial things.

What I know is that I will not sleep tonight, even as another day ends by the blow of another force of ebbing strength somewhere inside of me... so why I go on, and why I hold my head up and try again is beyond me, but there it is, I guess. Todd and Luk and their fading voices—soft yet loud at the same time—send a small ache in my heart. But I go on even so. I need... to get out of that chamber. Out of that pinched and probing face, those scalding gold eyes, the tongue of word that twists in my head. What a strange... boy he is. Mier. Even the name is foreign when I tease it across my lips, mere, meeyarrre... and I ponder at his existence, a shy slight I had not seen prior to today.

Sunny is quiet behind me. There may be others following but I do not disturb my wonder for them. Perhaps Camri—oh, goodness, _Camri_. There is only so much of a flamboyant presence that I can take in at once, but only small spoonfuls can I handle in a sitting. Although... if he can be quiet too, then I will not mind. Is... that so wrong to think of? Oh, perhaps that is not the way to see others, crozzled by what I find lacking... I would rather not consider Camri outside of the outrageous thing he is, though.

To the left, past the bedchamber I had seen just earlier, up the stairs on the other hallway, through one chamber, into another. There is no voice, no feeling, no even hint of the presence I was so nearly captured by in here... and for a moment I wonder if I remembered it wrong. But that is not... how it was... is it? I-I am sure Illit is real—or was, in any case. Though if I never saw her again I admit I would not feel any sorrow. She also... reminds me of Camri. I suppose I harbor an inconvenience about those... types of people.

But Luk and Todd are not so far away from such. While tamer than the latter, my... childhood friend has his little moments, and Todd is in a world of his own, honestly. Pauleen—who I recall almost fondly at times—is perhaps a step above these two when it comes to raucousness, though she takes life in a rather... brash manner. These traits... are what flaunt so blatantly in my eye, but of course these are the opposite of what I see in myself.

Perhaps... that is a good thing.

But Dinu... my cousin Dinu resembles me, no? I mean... she takes a harsher standpoint as well as Pauleen—although nowhere near as boisterous as the others—and she comes off as condescending... easily. But she is quieter. Oh, is that such a bad way to characterize others? Louder and softer, boisterous and placid?

Does that mean Dinu should join our dubbed army too? Would she... see an interest too? She can be alarmingly self-centered, though I admit I come off as that in ways too. Yet here I am... Although, she never took much of an interest in Dina, now that I think of it: she was pleased enough I found myself someone who made me happy but she herself took scorn at the... gentleness.

Which is what I like. Gentle.

Though... if Luk was gentle he never would have been so emotional, never would have hit me and then cried and hugged me and felt pain so real that he needed to show everyone. Show me. If he was gentle would he have followed? I do... not know... if that could make such a difference in the boy.

Eventually, falling out of my aimless circles, I situate myself on the ground. There is carpet on the floor of this room—one large circular rug—which I lift and tug toward the window, and I sit and put my hands on the sill and I watch, feeling such a child inside of me.

The snow is nice. Small... flaky, white. Little designs encrusted like kisses on the glass until desolation: a harsh enough blow of the wind, enough to snap the tiny body into pieces carried far, far away from here. My breath fogs on the glass and I try to rub at it but it does not go away and I stare, weakly, at the whitish cloudy spot as it disintegrates on its own. When I poke it—hesitant—a laugh bursts from beside me.

I give Sunny a strange look and she laughs a little more. And then she shakes her head like this is her secret and telling me would ruin the fun. Oh... goodness. With a bit of a stilted air, I turn from her and watch as another big enough breath spreads across the glass... and while she is not looking I poke two small holes, a curve... then when she looks I try to cover it with my hands.

 _Rupert._ Snort. _How old were you again?_ Watching me blush and look away, try for some reasonable excuse we both know I do not have, she giggles a second time. _It's weirdly... precious, almost, coming from you. In a way. Heh. Sort of. But really... the most generic of 'smiley-faces' out of all things? Well I suppose you have to start somewhere._

I drop my gaze when she stops staring, and I feel the warmth of the glass dispel beneath me; when my fingers lift, there is no more "smiley-face" o-or whatever. _I-I like it,_ I mumble, in some attempt of repairing my hurt pride, _so what d-does it matter?_

The way Sunny eyes me sends a strange feeling my chest alive... so I look away again. It is... embarrassing. Oh, goodness. But I am the only one here, other than she, so I try again, puffing small breaths—a little snowman, carrot in his head, buttons and scarf down his middle, a top hat, stick arms waving in the air.

She makes a small sound in her throat. _It's alright._

 _Alright?_ I mutter despite better judgment. _Then what does your bloody world require for something more than alright?_

Like this is some game, there is another giggle. _I don't know. You need more than old glass and the water vapor in your breath to make art, Rupert. Paints. Brushes. Honestly, even just paints would make it art in some name of another. Or graphite... sketches, drawings. Clay formations. Usually overly realistic ones._

 _So this is not art?_ I stare blankly at the fingerprints staring back at me.

 _Psh._ She shakes her head. _No. Not to me, this is not art. Though I suppose that doesn't mean it's not for_ you _, you child._

My eyes lower, but I catch her smile, and that makes me feel a little better about it.

 _Is there something amiss in this form? It is creation, expression of oneself, aesthetics, no?_ I smirk lightly. _Is it the absence of paint or the absence of clay or the absence of_ graphite _that takes any hope of 'aesthetics' from little drawings on the glass? Need you a guideline on 'acceptable art' to follow?_ My eyes raise somewhat. _How could that be art if you restrain yourself to strict ideals?_

Sunny, a low grin on her face, her eyes nary closed, slaps her fin against the glass. _How about_ that _, Rupert? Is that art for you?_ Watching my eyes trail her, she pulls out her other little fin and presses that in too. _Fin prints. Mm? Is that enough?_ Does another one, for good measure, and situates her golden self smirking back at me.

Her ensemble is... amusing. _So your art is mere pander of others._ She stiffens, face taut. _Sunny. You cannot copy, as much of a flattery as it is considered: you must express yourself. Not me. Not anyone else._

 _O-Oh come on! I was making a point!_ Now she is flustered. My smirk loses its hint of satire. I look away again. _Ru-Rupert! That's no fair..!_ She goes on puttering this for some few more seconds before her pause and her gaze, which tilts toward me. _Is that a smile?_ Oh. Of course.

I continue ignoring her, as that is the easiest way to prolong a discussion I would rather not partake in. But as her loud thoughts digress a little louder, I mutter, _You are not Mistress either—there is no need for you to go through such measures over something so... small. And you are not Luk for that matter._

She scowls; I can feel it in her words. _I know that..!_ Somehow her silence is more cutting than her speech; the air is noticeably colder for some time. _What are you suggesting, anyways? You don't... know me. Honestly. You hardly know anything about any of us. S-So what if I'm pleased that a boy who's hardly smiled in all of his life is finally felt joy? Mmmmh! Is there something wrong with that? Am I not allowed to act a certain way, to_ be _a certain way, around other people? Is this my conformity?_

I wince.

That is... right. Is it not? No... but of course. How, ah, foolish of me to act in such a... careless way. With people... with feelings... it is all so easy to... to _hurt_ one another. Like carving their heart out of stone, and one single mishap nearly bisects it. And... stone does not come back together once it has come apart. Not... easily. This must be a dance, this life, where single steps mark you astray, where little touches so easily sway the world watching in one direction... or the other. Or even one you never thought it would come to. That is... not so simple.

It was easier to think it was. Once. There was nobody outside of my father who did not see me in some harsh, artificial light; and he was another story I rather thought not of. There was nobody out there who would manage to penetrate this barrier of mine so long as it was deep and it was harsh enough. There was nobody who saw inside of this... saw inside of me... and saw a loneliness as harsh as my distance.

Such a lie almost amounted to something... beautiful, was it not so cruel... on so many different levels. But I guess there is beauty in such pain as well.

 _My... apologies, Sunny._ First comes first. _I am not very skilled in arts of... conversation, of relation._ Dina was... in a way, easy. Too easy, it felt like at times. We... got along so well... but it is not as if everyone will see me so well as she has, and it is not as if I will see everyone so well as I have seen her. _I do not truly know many people... and I cannot truly understand the differences that set others apart._ It is not at all that there were never problems... but she brought me so much joy, in despite of flaws, in despite of any pain. _Not yet. Not... really._ For as far as I know... unless I do not change, this may continue.

What a... troublesome path to follow.

The marple beside me has shifted in the midst of my thoughts and my voice. Sky blue eyes stare quizzically back, and it is not until I cease that she regains much sense of composure. _Mmmnh. It's fine. I came off harsh anyways. I'm rather good at that, yes? Bluntness most especially is my skill._ Bluntness... how strange. I know... someone else with such bluntness. _But that's well... that's something else! Bah... I came off a little nosy, asking you about that. Sorry. You're not even used to it yourself... you always shy away when you smile. Doesn't matter who you're with, and you at least know Luk and Mistress, at least mostly._

Mostly? I never... thought of it as so much. Maybe she is right. I watch the marple now, and I catch her subtle sense of... is that pride? I—I think I will go on pretending I did not... see such a thing. It is not what I would like to... think about.

It is so much easier to read others when I actually give them my attention. Then why it is so... hard... to lose myself within conversation? Ah... what trouble.

Dina was blunt too... and I admit she was always rather easy to read. Her face brightly flushed when she was embarrassed; she began to cry when she was sad; she could not hold her stance or your gaze if she was flustered, or if she was attempting to lie; she shut down when signs of frustration revealed; and she smiled, and she giggled a soft giggle when she was happy.

I suppose some of her rubbed off upon me: a blank face has so... vividly picked up emotions now. I never blushed, I never cried, I never... none of these—especially not smile, no, never. It was not merely an act of hiding my emotions: truly, by the end of it the feeling had ebbed from inside of me. How someone as tender... and gentle... and emotional as her had managed to reverse these effects I am unsure... but there it is.

Emotions... may be weakness. But I want her to know how I am feeling. I want her to see me... happy.

 _Oohhhhh! Are you talking about that orangey-haired girl again?_ I flinch; why is he here and why now of all times? _C'monnnnn! You can tell meeeeee~ Ruuuu-peeeertt! Just because I disliiiike her doesn't mean I don't caaaaare!_

Sunny notes the look on my face and bites her lip. I sigh. _Yes, I know._ She does her best not to giggle in front of me, which I appreciate, but it is rather obvious just by the look on her own face how nearly she is to it. _I cannot understand that foppish... idiot. Ah, he is so..._

 _RUUUPEERRTTTTTT!_ I flinch again.

 _What is it?_

Finally Camri loops through the final corridor and has found us. _Oh! There you are! I knewww you were around here somewhere! My great tracking abilities could simply smell it! Hah!_ Oh, dear... _And... Sunny! Mmmmmhmm! You must be simply elated to be reunited with me as well, yes? Oh, there is no otherwise! I have no need to ask! Well I trust you're feeling much better now that I am of your immediate vicinity!_

I can't describe the exasperation upon the marple's face. _That's preposterous! Wh-What on earth_ are _you!_ Though it must be noted, duly or not, that her face has shaded itself an extreme blush of red.

 _You did not forget so soon, did you now?_ He pauses, and as I turn, his maw quivers with the grace of a smooth, waxy smirk. My hesitation compels him, perhaps along the thinking that my slackened stare was for and not against him. Invalid thinking. But even so Camri is seemingly incapable of looking any way but down on everyone who is not himself, and up otherwise. _It's the only sense that could be made, Sunny! Of course you long for me! I mean—_ scoff— _who doesn't?_ Alright, Camri... alright then. As greatly as I would like to differ with him and make him see otherwise... I fear there are some too stubborn for any means of a contradiction.

But it does make me wonder why he thinks so. My eyes wander back to the glass wall, my little fingerprint smudges shining faintly in the cold light of the stars. Beside me, Sunny is reflected, her form a bright yellow; Camri, too far beyond, is left as but a besmirched blue in the background. Sighting this, he scoots closer. Small droplets fleck to my shoulder from where he lies. _Mmmmh! Such a fine form, no? Oh, who am I kidding! Why else do all who gaze upon it fawn over me so greatly? There is no other reason than that of my excellency!_

Sunny's blushing face crumples into a grimace. _You make me sick..! Ulhhh._ Rolls her eyes. I note her gaze pulling away from the krona yet at the same time wavering, and thus her face pinches even more. _I hate this._

 _Oh, whatever do you mean, Sunny?_ cries Camri, appalled. _How could you hate a single thing while I am right beside you?!_

 _How are you even_ alive _?! How?! I-I don't understand! You have you managed this long! I... I... ahhhh, I suppose I'll never know, n-now will I, huh... hnnng..!_ Sunny flinches upon herself, a small scowl on her face. _You don't even make sense. None of you does._ By the quivering she makes and the fidgeting figure I presume she is trying to hide the stubborn blush which refuses to disappear from her cheeks.

The suave expression he carefully flourishes does no wonders for the marple. She has managed to tear her gaze away and from the injury in her own eyes she must be upset with herself for staring long enough. It must be... difficult, their lifestyle, the carnal enticement of some while all she wants is to wall herself in... unable to. _One cannot deny my lavishness, oh no,_ he croons.

I wonder if the day will come when he realizes otherwise.

Finally from the creaking off the floorboards we listen to the approach of a large sauropod, quickly followed by the _tik, tik tik,_ of claws upon wood. Pippy, Mistress. I believe... oh, who was it... Tessa and Gyntis are all that are left. But why these two followed I... I do not even know. Let them be, I surmise, let them be.

 _Lavishness?_ the seismo squeaks. _I-I mean it's alright, but like... like... may I go on such a stretch as to say that... well... Oh, that would be rude! I-I don't want to be rude! Um! I uh! B-Be as lavish as you'd like, Camri?_ He ends his statement with a shrill crack that causes most in the general area to wince.

 _Do not encourage him,_ mutters Sunny, _please don't inflate his ego even more._

Camri starts. _Ego? But I_ am _ego! I_ am _glory and beauty of the self, my dear!_ His pet name curls Sunny's lip as she turns further away from the krona. _Oh, dear, perhaps such a fulsome wonder is too much for the little marple, no? Well! Do your best to grow used to me, but only so much that you may bask in my glory; for I am here for you to ogle, oh surely!_

Quietly... I close my eyes. The voices, while not loud, while speckled with stutters, while weak, are not unkind voices. And my head grows heavy... listening to all of these personalities, all of these opinions. It is strange... to be so full of the language, of the laughter of anyone, let alone many somebody elses entirely.

Camri barks orders about himself and Pippy calmly attempts to praise him; Sunny grows in her annoyance against him and eventually retorts in turn, only to be ignored by the fulsome krona. But Pippy thanks her, voice albeit weak.

 _Oh, Camri... do not fret: you are lovely, I assure you,_ murmurs a voice so low I nigh miss it within the concoction of the others. It is soft, and somber, and just as Camri's is so high-pitched and unrelenting, so is this weak: antipodals circling but backing away at the same time. Like a dance. A very strange... dance.

So I raise my heavy head and heavy heart and attempt to look into the dark ruby eye: _Mistress, what is that?_

Her smile is fleeting. _Mm? Oh, dearie, do not worry._ Catching the narrow of my eyes she goes on hurriedly: _It is nothing that concerns you_ , but I am unrelenting as well and she finally cries, _Alright! Alright. For once you ask so I tell you that maybe... you think him too bold. Inflated. Fulsome._ She shudders with the word. _But nobody... is of one dimension. So I think. And I do._

Oh, Mistress...

I turn back around, the weight of my gaze lifted; she sighs softly, and she sits silent then.

It is here the pressure of living again rolls into me, and I feel my head lightly tap into the glass. It is cold, the feeling, but not as cold as I had thought it might be... and I am tired... and it has been... a long time... since I have rested... even but somewhat...

So the voices, oh... the voices... grow dimmer, and dimmer, as if candles are blown out one by one inside of me... until finally... I cannot keep up with conscience...

And things begin to... slip away... for but a strong... strong moment...

There is darkness in my dreams, no color, no sound, merely a comforting null that offers with it no emotional needs. I do not mind. When I wake, though, that is not my sense of... something wrong. The vivosaurs have gone quiet—I think I hear one of them snoring—rather loudly—behind—and the tail of a certain mapo queen is wrapped about me—but as I try and try to strike fire on focus... there is something wrong.

Oh, what is it? Dina—first blitz of a name—but no... no, that was already wrong. That is nothing new. Her name in my mouth but that is nothing new. I gently pry my forehead from where it rests on the glass—only somewhat chilled—and I raise my eyes from their reflections to find... nothing of note. Just snow. Just... a lot of snow. It is pretty, sparkling little bits of snow, but nothing of note.

So I turn, my body a dull ache thrumming throughout me, down in my toes, upon my knees, crawling, crawling, through my head, in my ears: Am I a bell... having been struck? I shaky my head weakly, small smile toying my lips. No. That is foolish thinking.

Finally with a twist the blanket around my figure slides off and I start, my head bracing the window a second time. A silent word in my mouth as I struggle to get myself up on my stiff legs and stare down at the pool of fabric, little worn brown blanket— _nothing of note—_ of _course—_ and I wonder who in the world was here in my vulnerable state, and _why_ a blanket...

It was not... that cold... was it? Two layers: the creamy orange and finely-stitched coat and the one underneath it, my red one. My pants, rather fluffy already, are in no bad shape, and my boots are of thick material. I do not... look cold. One gloved hand reaches out to my face, gently brushes back the bangs and the small strands of white hair, and I feel four tiny cold epicenters lace where I place their tips, my thumb still pushing back hairs.

Immediately I yank them back. H-How cold. Yes. Very cold. I shake my head.

My eyes travel back toward the blanket... and I gather it into my hands, a big swaddled bundle. It would be... unwise to leave it on the ground like a discarded and coarse fabric... only to leave it trampled. It is... a blanket of nice quality... and it is warm. I hold it tightly about my frozen fingers. Carefully I step, and I step, working my way around the rim of the room as if it a difficult art to walk.

When I hear the voice.

 _Hrr._

I pause, cheeks hot. _Wh-Who is there?_

 _Who you think?_

My face flushes. _I-I..! I do not know... th-that is why I ask..!_

 _Oh._ Somehow such a tiny, tiny syllable connotes me into a pit of shame and I sit there, hot guilt in my veins. _Sivan._

 _Sivan,_ I mutter. But then I see him.

The guttural voice summons with the creature, a heavyset feline who stalks carefully through the corridor and into the chamber like a fantastical beast. Bright flaming orbs in his head draw to me; the yellow fur, cut and cut in stripes of blood red, situates itself as he recognizes me. The smilo continues to stare as I do, as if waiting for something to occur, and then I realize maybe he is. And I wonder if he is waiting for recognition: and then it comes.

 _Oh._ He nods. Smirking. _You are one of Pauleen's, are you not? The smilo... who hardly ever spoke a word._ He grunts his approval. _Then why speak now?_

He shakes his bushy head. _Understand._

So I mutter again, _Oh_ ; then I glance at my vivosaurs and ask him, _Do I need to rouse them?_ but he is already out the door again so I would presume otherwise. Well. Tessa and Gyntis are around here somewhere, yes..? I can summon them.

After having conveyed his message, the smilo is mesmerizingly silent but for a grunt or so here or there: when he trips down one of the steps, when he paws at the door to that bedroom on the left, when a face nearly bashes into mine down the hallway.

I start and step back, pausing, breathing, until the name comes to me. "Mier." I blink. "Mier, what are you doing here?"

The fickle grin. He eyes the blanket. "Was it good of me?" Gesturing toward it. I look away. "Was it... nice?"

Quiet.

"Yes." I pause again. He is watching me strangely. What does... this pinkette want? "Are you coming with us, then? For Pauleen." Sivan utters a grunt—affirmation as to our purpose. Mier offers a short nod when I look, but I think he still requires of something. I pull the blanket out of my arms, step toward him, but he shakes his head no.

"I think you need it." Then, "You looked cold. You were up there for awhile... and you looked cold."

I blush again. "O-Oh.

Then, stumbling, "Th-Thank you."

Finally the golden gaze rolls by me. So that is all he wanted. So as the smilo and myself—soon joined by an annoyed e-raptor and pachy—turn to the entranceway and leave through the door, the taller boy follows... and so he _was_ coming, from wherever he was. Did he let Sivan in? He must have... it is evident the smilo would rather avoid destruction of the chambers. He was... strangely gentle. Asking for doors to open. Grunting down the stairs he so often tripped over.

My boots and Mier's crunch in the snow, each step a methodical _churhh_. Sivan leads, Tessa and Gyntis flanking him, and Mier and myself toward the back. He is watching me, watching little shivers, breath of white in the air, and the longer we go the further annoyance flecks in his golden eyes. Eventually he nabs the blanket out of my hands and tosses it over me. "You have to wear it if you wanna fight the cold." Snort.

I say nothing. My face must be expressive enough for how I feel. Confused, flustered, mildly annoyed. Embarrassed. I do not thank him a second time, thinking the first well enough, but as the silence chills on I whisper, "Luk and Todd are asleep."

"Yes." A fast and just as quiet return. "They were exhausted... and, well, loud... so I didn't feel like waking them." He does not ask if I minded that Sivan came to wake me in their stead. "I'm assuming your friend knows you too."

"She does," I murmur. And then it is quiet again.

Our footprints follow behind us, feet loud in the otherwise silent snow. Small snippets of conversation, awkward and jagged, interrupt between the pachy and the e-raptor, but only briefly and for as short of a time as possible. At some point Tessa asks what exactly what we are doing and I remind her of Pauleen and Sivan and she is quiet again. What a... sad group. The silent lead, all else of frosty terms... the chill of the snow in flurries about us.

Finally, his voice a crack in the icy barriers: "Rupert... you're so quiet. And cold. And kind of... moody. Like, you can be cold and all... but at the same time you're moody. Does that make sense? Gah. Maybe not." Pause. The golden eyes cannot sit still upon me; I feel them nosing about me but I do not reflect his curiosity. "Like... you show emotions so easily. That's... nobody does that. Not really."

I drop my voice. "There are people." He hears me anyways.

"Oh, I'm sure. You just didn't seem like one of them. Not at all."

My eyes narrow.

I take in a breath, and I tell him, "This is... different for me, yes. But I fear if I pick up old walls and hide behind them yet again... for all I know those walls would not come down again." Because it... hurt enough... when I took them down the first time. To reveal myself, to deliberately take myself apart, piece by piece, to let this world see me as I am. Me... And still I struggle with this decision. But to change it would change me—again—and why bother changing when I still have my hope?

So there I raise my eyes and I look to Mier. Carefully, only upon his edges—not as rough as his eyes. "Why are you quieter? You do not... not..." How is it... "Search—You do not search so relentlessly... for an answer. You accept." I blink. Quickly thrust my gaze into his—lose my breath—you can do this—just for a moment. "Why is this?"

I watch the smirk trace his lip but lose my nerve to continue staring soon after.

"Hmmph." Is that a pout in his voice? "I wasn't that loud. I'm not... those friends of yours. _They_ are loud." Distaste. O-Oh. How... strange. "No, not them. I'm curious... that's all. Hah—Who else leaves their big, warm cabin with all that snow outside to go pester some strangers? Sure, they were weird strangers—that guy with the ugly goggles, the one in the dress, the fancy-clothes boy—but even so. It was pretty cold outside." Shrug. "And I let y'all wreck the food stores while I was at it. I think some credit's a little overdue."

I shake my head. "Al...right." He hangs onto my words. "Curious." Snorts.

"You could say that." I feel his eyes piercing me again, their original wonder blasted into me. How curious, I wonder, just is he?

When I remember. "Did you know who I was prior to our meeting?" His head turns. I look back again. "My... status is not... exactly unknown... in this world." I have only met one person who did not—and—well—she was... _sheltered_ being a suitable euphemism—for—ah—tortured—so I wonder. He is... sheltered, as well, no?

"Hmm." Watching me carefully. "I feel like... some part of me knew, I guess? You dress pretty high-class enough. _Rupert_." He laughs when I flush again. "No... I didn't really know you. I guess that's weird, uh?" He smiles at my faint surprise. I feel that as well, and glance carefully toward him. "You seem used to people recognizing you. Hoo... that sounds real tiring. No wonder you hid everything. But now it's all out and... it's pretty funny."

I nod... slowly. "Yes. Perhaps so..."

"Psh. You even say that funny."

"I—It is how I speak. Is there something so wrong with it?"

"It like... I don't know." Probing me again. "It's like... Did you always talk so... not even formally, just the _way_ you say it. 'It is how I speak' and 'It is like' and 'My status is not' whatever, whatever."

It... came from Dina. But I will not say that aloud, because... I do not want to. Let me keep her to myself, would you? Let I hold onto her memories. To her. Mier is... a strange one. Different, yes, and I am still not quite sure what kind of a different it is... if he will prove himself benign for us... or malignant. I would of course prefer the first, but even so...

When I glance again, Mier is smiling, if but slightly.

I think he enjoys... teasing me. Though it is... mildly insulting... it is not enough to rile me and not enough to yell slander in my face as _certain others I know_ might, certain others currently sleeping back in the cabin.

So it is alright too.

A small forested area opens up to us just in front. Sivan dissolves into the shadowy white, the ice-capped trees, and my vivosaurs soon follow, and after it is Mier and myself to come. Great thick coats of bark reign from above and around like icicles, some frozen entire inches through by the weather... some reveal as a sickly gray on the inside, although most make themselves comfortable in their home. It is a wonder how such treacherous times allow for such large trees to take form, towering easy stories above.

Sometimes Tessa steps on a branch. Usually Tessa, hardly Gyntis—she takes insult to this and calls the e-raptor out; he reminds her that his feet are narrower and she goes off in a huff about it.

Then the hill takes form in front of us. A hillock in the distance—brilliantly white—slowly swooning, closer, closer, until it lies the sheer mass of a colossal vivosaur egg in front of us. Atop the hill, face heated, lips chilled, lies... a girl. Dark skin that clashes with the cold, pink hair down in choppy, thick waves about her. Form enclosed upon itself...

Why is she sleeping? Why _sleeping_ in the _snow_? I step forward and reach out my hand but Sivan grunts loudly. He tilts his head in her direction and shakes his head rapidly, then mutters, _Dangerous woods_.

 _Yes, well_ , I respond, agitated, _if she stays up there much longer she will die._ It brings memories back for when a certain girl nearly died of a similar fate. _I care not for the danger; it would be... rather troublesome for her to die, do you not think!_

And Sivan has naught else to say but _dangerous woods_ a second time. Tessa makes a little annoyed noise in her throat. I gesture her closer and she comes slowly, letting me climb up her back and reach out to the sleeping Pauleen, her face hardening as I think, and I—thoughtlessly—put my hand upon her face and somehow her emerald eyes snap open.

"Gahhh! Di-Digadig! What the hell is going on!"

A tension in my chest I did not notice prior has released. I quickly whisper, "Pauleen... Pauleen—it is me, Rupert... What are you doing here?" I pause, taking urgency instead of curious instinct. "We need to get you out of here... now."

She struggles to lift her head and once she does, shoveling out of her little snow imprint—grabbing my hand—the ball beneath her explodes. Snow hits my face, hits Tessa's face, the entirety of Pauleen's back, Mier, Gyntis; Sivan is drenched in steamy piles. Everyone. I shove Pauleen down beside me and frantically wipe at the chill.

When a voice erupts from the mass.

 _Who is this? Whooooo... may this be? Hmmmnnnnnnn?_

We all pause. Pauleen hiccups. She slaps a hand over her face. I toss her a look of confusion and she whispers "Bad guy" and I close my eyes smiling weakly and she mutters "Yeah, yeah, we're friggin screwed."

A blast of a yell from another dimension rocks us on top of Tessa; I hold her tightly and Pauleen does her best but without internal support she eventually slides off from the pachy, slamming into the earth sideways. She gets up rather quickly, shaking her head, hair in tizzies, and Mier stops by her and offers quick greetings and she does the same.

Their eyes meet for longer than necessary. Even as she steps back those blaring orbs follow on both sides. Something about the chill in her face, yet she suffers hardly scratches... and the hunger of knowledge in his texture...

But I miss whatever it is because the voice returns with the overpowering sense of _ancient_ streaming. I instruct Tessa and she immediately sidesteps as a second blare of wind erupts from her side, little snow flurries merely catching open space. _Gaahhhhh_ , she mutters, _what have we gotten into..._

Gyntis rallies beside me. I ask him to search out the voice and, poised, he carefully turns left, then left and right again and slams into the spot where Pauleen had slept for however long it was. Sivan follows quickly and both are tossed back like playthings as a surge of the earth below trembles and I realize it was never the skies where it carried but... down below. Where the cracks in the ground are.

I wince.

The voice bellows a second time. And then it finds words.

 _I... am... hungry._

We all stop a second time.

 _Hungry... hungry... hunnnnNNNGGRRYYYYYHHHHHHHHHHH!_

Then his arm bursts through the soil and in a spew of fear or dirt of something I turn and catch a burning onyx eye.

 _COME, CHILDREN: FEED ME WITH YOUR MORTAL SOULS, WOULD YOU?_

And by here it is obvious what is about to happen. The tumult of the earth shakes beneath Tessa's feet and inevitably rattles me, so I pull myself closer to her and watch as the paths between trees knock down with the leaves, the branches, and then the actual trees themselves, and the monster's hand lashes out to our side and I cry for her to go and oh, oh she _goes_ , and his thumb catches her side but she kicks powerfully and it is only a matter of time before the earth collapses below us.

I share a long, slow look with Mier. He is smiling... but there is a wariness behind it that I recognize as my own.

Pauleen scoots closer to him, weakly calling for Sivan, who thankfully came out unscathed. Gyntis lifts himself—his flank bleeds but it is not a large wound.

So that was our warning.

Then I face the crumbling volcano of earthen acid ahead and accept my face... as here it comes.

 **Ancient battle! Buh buh! Will it go better or worse than the rupy dad battle?**

 **Also we get more Mier characterization! Mier's a funny one, huh?**

 **Oh and Pauleen, she's here too! Yay! Or... not-yay, since she's acting strannnge?**


	11. Da: Memories of Fear

**Me: Hahaha, I feel so reluctant to keep switching between chapters... sometimes I get nervous about which chapter goes where and then I'll like stare at the chapter choices I made for TSFF and try not to panic, haha... it's weird xD Ahh...**

 **Anyways, Dina chapter! I don't think I have a favorite out of the four, but I'm somewhat overly attached to Dina's personality xD well... no that's not true, I'm more or less attached to all of them... they just they're like TTwTT**

 **Todd: they're beautiful so beautiful**

 **Torn: -You BET I am-**

 **Trikko: -He's not talking to you alone.-**

 **Torn: -I KNOW THAT-**

 **Trikko: -I was just making sure, Torn; we both do know that you're an idi-**

 **Torn: -STOP THAT-**

 **Trikko: snorts**

 **Dina: TTwTT a-ahhhh—**

 **Trikko: -Oh Dina don't worry about it, you know he gets like this when he's feeling surly-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 11: Memories of Fear

 _Dina_

 _T-Trikko..._ His head turns as he hears my whisper. He does not quite halt, although his pace slows with my quiet, nervous breathing. _Trikko... um... a-about the memories I was telling you... and the z-zombiesaurs w-we fought earlier... that you all saw too..._ As I stutter off, his quiet intake is a prompt to continue. I swallow. _Ummm... S-So that means what I-I saw... will happen again, yes?_ A subtle nod. He is still quiet. I appreciate his patience and try again. _So then... so then if it happens again... wh-when it happens again..._ I-I am afraid of it happening again.

He listens. And what I do not say explicitly I am sure he still hears. Information crawls on layers of levels about us, even in this intense darkness, and I am sure every last crack in my words is caught under his watchful care. It is... a different kind of care than the care Torn believes in, hot like fire, or the care Nyra believes in which is a gentler care, or any other emotionally empowered care.

But it is there.

The little droplets are as big of an impact as the waterfall... sometimes bigger.

Quietly he tells me, _Dina... if it happens, then it happens._ I press my lips tight together, nodding weakly. _You know that as of now we have yet to trigger any sort of 'control' over it. While I allow that yes, our attacks do affect the memories, I feel that they only dissipate for so long and eventually return, most likely out of our reach... which would explain why you were so far away and you were the only one who caught sight of... that little scene—_ spitting it like an unsavory flavor.

 _Trikko?_ He is quiet again. Listening. _D-Do you think there is a reason this is... ha-happening? Why I am seeing her... earliest memories? Or I guess, um, why all of us are?_ And he is silent even still after this, thinking, thinking, only taking the most appropriate answer for usage.

 _It's possible. I must say... yours have been gone for so long, your youngest ones, and as you grew older they only grew more spotty until dare I say you began to forget_ us _, even_. He does not speak unkindly, though my heart still cringes at the voice of the reminder. It was... a small thing... and it stares at me through big gaping eyes. S-Scary.

We pause. He returns to a faster lumbering pace, his head in great sweeping motions as he searches for our abandoned light. _Trikko?_ Another silent prompt. _Do you think... u-ummm... do you think..._ He is still quiet, still waiting. I think a part of him has come to realize already what I am about to suggest... b-but let me voice it. Let me hear it for myself. _Is it possible... that... that m-maybe..._

 _If I see her oldest memories... could mine..._

 _return?_

The wince is fast and also subtle but still very real, a subtle boulder in the middle of a road. Quietly working toward me, trying to find the right words to tell me. With an inhale, he murmurs, gently... _Dina. Let's not be so hasty yet, okay? If you start thinking like that... I mean, this is all rather new for us. I'm still trying to divulge how all of this factors in—what_ sense _it makes. I just don't want to confirm a probability that we don't even have the faintest clue of a likeness of._ I pause again. Waiting. So he means... _Maybe. I don't know. I won't shut you down but I am not building you up either, not on false hope. It's not... right, I don't think._ Oh. _But maybe. Just don't... go crying over it._

 _I like maybe more than no_ , I whisper.

There is a smile. A subtle smile. _Do remember that some maybes are just nos in disguise._

 _B-But the other is true too, yes..?_ I feel the pressure in my voice as well as he does.

Still a smile. But he is shaking his head too, slightly. _Yes. But if you think that way always... well, at some point you'll get stopped. We can do our best to say yes, but... we aren't in control of everything._

 _N-Not even Torn._

He snorts. My heart warms. _No, especially not Torn. His word choice, as notorious as it may be, is not disputable; at least that's what he thinks. But he is also Torn. And I'm sure that while Torn also wouldn't build you up on false hope either, he also wouldn't know what he was talking about in the first place, so for all we know everything flying out of his mouth is false hope._

 _Tr-Triiiikkooooooo...! Heheh..._

 _Well I don't hear you telling me otherwise._ His grin gently pulls into that of a subtle, smug smirk.

Yes, maybe my beloved dimetro is not as stable or as calm as my tricera... but that does not stop the latter from—albeit reluctantly—admitting himself of close acquaintance to the former. They are... silly. I-I like that... I like their silly. But thinking about their silly addles me as I search too, like Trikko, only I do not see anything outside of the blackness either... and my stomach pinches and I wonder does the black go on forever and ever or does it come to a point where it all... stops? A-And if it all stops, what is after what stops? Why is there a barrier? And if it has no end... th-then it was not a good idea for us to lose sight of one another... a-a-as far as I was thrown or not... then maybe—

 _Dina._ I start. _You're not helping anyone. I made my choice, and that choice was to go find your poor sobbing self. I'm sure the others are searching too, so it's only a matter of time before we recollect. Just think: when we all first came together, it's not as if anyone was missing. So I'm sure we'll come back again._

 _I-Is that faith?_ I squeak, momentarily leaving my regrets behind.

His Trikko snort. _No, of course not. I don't_ believe _, Dina: I know. And I know that we'll find our way back home because of our prior experience... and as far as I know, our little black pocket of conscience has yet to defy itself._

Somehow that is comforting. His facts. His logic. His knowing without a single doubt of contradiction because it was this way before, within lines of reason: so for now on, unless proven otherwise... this remains unchanging. O-Of course I am sure it is possible that he is wrong... but still. The self-assurance is... enticing. And nice. And it gives him a certain safety that... is unlike other ones. His little droplets are very sure of themselves. But it reminds me that... there is another Safety, another Safety and it is Missing... but I do not want to continue dwelling on what is gone when I know that will not make it come back any faster.

Trikko makes an idle comment about my attempt at logic and I blush, smiling sightly.

Even so he is right; not long after a ghost of blue streaks through our vision, and it is soon followed by four certain silhouettes—I point and I cry and it is palpable in my melting tension that I did not have faith nor logic, not really, but somehow Trikko finds this a reason to smile again. When I catch his feelings he sourly stuffs them back inside of himself, but they are still there... permeating.

 _Torn!_ I cry and when he hears me he darts out from under his light and sprints and sprints and Nyra is fast but not as fast and Aladee tries to keep up although his short body lags him behind and Reyna does not even try but there he is, and he leaps up on top of Trikko and smashes into his head and rests his head over mine and he does not get off of his best friend until he grunts loudly.

In greeting, my dimetro hisses. _Well fuck you too! Let me feel fucking gratitude that the both of you made it in one fucking piece, would you! Ughhhhh! Stop being such an aaassssssssssss!_

 _Oh you poor fool,_ offers my tricera in response. _Torn, have you yet to realize how much danger we're actually in?_ After a pause allotting enough for the others to gather around him, he continues: _Seriously. You need to lift your head out of your flaming behind and realize for once in your life that to keep living on weak retrospect without the support of the facts is going to kill you one of these days._

To his proposal, Torn hisses a second time. _No! Go to hell! Dammit, Trikko!_

He snorts. _Of course, Torn. You keep telling yourself that... you do realize saying it won't take me there?_ Leaving his best friend in sulking silence, Trikko returns to what he wanted to tell the others. _Yes, so: Dina and I discovered after our little excursion and she was thrown across the clearing that these aren't 'bad guys out to get us' or anything that unbelievable but early memories of our ruby-eyed girl._

 _Well. That makes enough sense. But why?_ Reyna is quiet in the back but her own ruby eyes have sharpened.

 _Because..._ Trikko seeks a solid wording. _Well, I can't offer much. But I infer that this might have a relation to Dina's own lost memories, from back when she had her own body, so therefore it's possible Zoazoa—you recall her name now surely—is losing hers now? And we're here to partake in the... fun, I surmise?_

Torn blinks sourly. His tongue flickers. _This is_ not _fucking fun._ Then he adds _Bitch_ for good measure.

Quiet again. The others, after seeing my memories and the ones Trikko saw from me and hearing his thought carefully sculpted, take their time with their own feelings. It is Aladee who surfaces himself and cries, _So it's like watching a video! But not?_ He narrows his dark eyes. _And we have to watch it no matter what? And it... hurts! Hurts a lot if we get in the way!_

Gently I shift, crawling down from the side of my tricera. The bruises and cuts I took from the zombiesaur who was on top of me still nick in places, still sting, and I worry if this is different than the others. Torn watches the shimmering purple marks on me take light in the flare of his heat and his face hardens with a twitch: _Trikko what the fuck happened to her. She looks like.. like... shit! Holy shit! Did she get... hurt or—or something?_ I flinch back at his stare, soon reciprocated by the others. Nyra winces and looks back, Aladee whimpers, Reyna is a delayed response but the response itself is hidden within a snort.

 _No, Torn,_ mutters the tricera, _you can have bruises without being hurt first._ He rolls his eyes. _But in all honesty by the time I was there one of the monsters had cornered her and was just disappearing and... by the looks of it I would say she would have been hurt more had she not been in that weird vivosaur form of hers. But... yes, there was damage._

And now there is staring.

Nyra gingerly presses one of her glittering arms; her face pinches. The memory of a bump having healed glosses over her and she mumbles, _But if I've recovered, and Torn and Reyna have recovered... then why hasn't she?_ So with the light shining down and myself not hidden in his shadow my tricera looks upon me a second time and his grimace thickens.

I drop their eyes. It is... hard to look. My cheeks heat. _S-Sorry—_

 _Not your fault_. Reyna. _Stop that._ My cheeks heat again. _We'll just... have to be careful. These things... really do want to kill her, hm? Dina, they don't look like they hurt all that much..._ With my slow nod, and after seeing my nod in the heads of the others, she resumes. _So then they're not all that bad. Which is... not a bad thing._ Trikko snorts. _Shut up. It's not._ Then Torn snorts too. _Ugh._ She ignores any later comments. _We'll... have to be careful. I guess the—the zombiesaurs here really do want to hurt Dina. Kill her. Whatever. That's so weird... Yet they don't leave their marks for long on us._

Trikko grunts. _Yes, I presume it's because we're not supposed to be here, and therefore we have nothing to do with these memories and the pain and the like. This is... between Zoazoa and Dina, whether we like that or not. And... it's possible even so, if we aren't careful ourselves... well. Before you know it..._

One of them sees me in the dark on my own but then it is gone and somebody ushers a stifling and someone else glances hurriedly at me and then it is quiet again.

They see something.

I slowly raise my hand... my shimmery white hand, the scales, the marks, the gouges... the dried blood. Swallowing I press my thumb from my other hand into this one and wince as hot—throbbing—v-very _real_ pain rushes in beneath the wound. A-As to be expected. And... carefully, fingers glancing over my forehead... I note the scrapes there too. Licking a finger I rub at the blood and I think some of it wipes off but I feel that I have missed some... and my hair, coiled and orange about me... matted. I nervously try to comb my fingers through it but I do not get very far.

Then my eyes raise to their pristine scales, their fluid expressions, the silent conversation... and my heart sinks. And I wonder, quietly, quieter than their words... why? Why am I... so battered when they are alright—why am I not... _good..._ enough to—

 _rrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRGRGGGHHhh—_

Nyra immediately scoops me upon her back and instructs me to _hold on tight_ with the words booming in my head as she scrapes for the air above, as far as she can while still keeping the little blimp of blue light nearby, and we soar, her wings rippling open wide. My little fingers dig into her back, her strong and muscular and powerful back, and she hardly feels the miniscule strength inside of me. But I... hardly feel it too, when next to this potent entity. She is so... big. And I am so small. I fit snugly into the small of her back, I am so small, she is so big. The rippling green scales gone turquoise by the faint light of the dimetro charging ahead.

When comfortable, my nycto ace begins to circle above them. One wide, swooping, never-ending arc, each plow of her wings in the sky sending my hair into little tizzies about me. Her great _cawwwwwwwhh_ that pierces a world far clouded by the unknown. She is watching, the pupils darting betwixt Reyna then Trikko then Aladee and so on, bouncing, bouncing, whispers under her breath— _Dive there—Trikko! Lift!—Oh oh oh ouuuch—Wh-Why won't you lift!—Torn to your_ left _you—ahhhh, there we go..._ The sounds dwindle as she sighs. _Oh, thank goodness, they'll be alright._

 _Mm?_ I turn to try and pick out the little shiny blobs on the nearly-black sands.

 _Why._ She smiles softly. _You can tell, if you look closely._ One wing stretches out toward the abyss below. Plow, plow, pushhhh. _See? A good three jumped them, and they were at a bit of a disadvantage because we were surprised into battle, but they managed to whittle them. See? One vivosaur has dispersed already, and that one over there is breathing hard, and the third can't be much stronger than him and now he's panting too... See? So they'll be over with it soon enough._ She speaks so cleanly but I can hardly follow the battle with my eyes alone... they linger too long on one vivosaur to be of much use.

There is a soft laugh. A little grin. _Says the victor of the..._ Stirring, stirring her head for the memory, when: _Caliosteo Cup! That's what it was called._ Her expression is smug. _Ahhh, forgetting has been so hard to work with. But yes... so says she who beat everyone in that Cup and Zongazonga himself with naught but she and her vivosaurs._

My head lowers. My eyes gloss.

 _Yes. But... the Caliosteo Cup was... staged, yes? I lost... in the first round. Todd won. But... Joe—I-I mean Zongazonga—who we thought was Joe—announced me. And I did win... a few... but it was still very staged, very... fake._

Nyra winces.

 _Oh, don't think like that! We still won, didn't we? And you can't forget about Zongazonga! Although I think we got help on that one—Ohhhh, come on, Dina! Pick up your drooping head! You still showed all of them, didn't you? You still... did a lot of good things. Lots of good things, I'm sure... if I only..._ she is trailing... _remembered them... Oh, but Dina, the Caliosteo Cup counts, surely! And... if you remember your little 'staged' battles then surely you remember other things about yourself, yes?_ She recovered... well. I look away.

But I... recover too. _No. Not... very well. I—um—I remember Todd. But that does not... mean very much. I-I remember losing to him. And being accepted t-to the second round anyways._

 _Dina! That was Zongazonga's fault! He knew something about you, about memories Joe has of you, about that feeling of something wrong... not yet realizing his daughter was inside of you. So he let you win! A-And be_ sides _! You beat everyone else! Y-You still won..!_ There is a sigh. _Dina, you_ are _strong! Stop... not believing me. Nnngh. You don't... need to get that way._

 _S-Sor—_

She sputters. _That's not what I want, and you know it!_ Another sigh. _We get it. Something's bugging you—we all feel it, you know. Something... missing. Something very, very important to you. Heh... Torn's mad about that. Have you seen him? He hates it. He's known you the longest and he's ridiculously overprotective._ A little chuckle. _Blind... though I wouldn't say that's a bad trait of his._ And then she brings herself back together again. _S-So stop that! Stop with those... words!_ Trying, trying.

It makes me feel bad... but here I am... the blood on my forehead... my hurt little... s-self. But here I am a-anyways. It... makes me nervous. M-Makes me feel as if I have failed... somehow. I am not sure how but it... hurts. My heart hurts. I want to know... where I am... and what is going on... and why, why, but... questions are painful little things. I used to... ask questions. But they do not... give answers. Th- _Them_. So I know it is of no use... Sometimes I cannot help it. They... happen, they come. I-I do not know. But they come.

Nyra is quiet with me. She pauses, tentative, teasing the barrier of silence before asking, _Why can't you be strong for yourself, then? You don't need to... let yourself fall. You don't need to keep... crumbling._ Grunt. _Wh-Why can't you understand that?_

 _S-Sorry._ She does not stop me this time. _I am... sorry._

And she turns, slowly, turns her head over her shoulder and looks at me not unkindly with those violet eyes of hers. She is quiet and she is fluid when she does it, eyes trained upon me, glimmering weakly, breath gentle upon me. There is not much expression to her, just dim green scales, but those eyes... there is something nestled within that squirms when I pinpoint it and attempts to dissolve back into her again—but I—I still saw it.

She sees something.

But before I can ask, before I open my mouth, before I even think to ask her, ask her now _what is it, what is it you see, all of you see_ , there is an earsplitting _SHRIEEEEEEEEEEE_ shredding throughout the area as this huge, huge bird vivosaur flaps with these _FUMMPH FUMPHHP_ wings with holes in them, creepy purple skin and—oh— _oh_.

Nyra swerves, a rush of wind tousling me against her side, and she slings a _WHUUMPH_ of her own back at the zombiesaur. It goes... sailing, but then a second jabs at her and with a shriek she does it again, and again, her wings sailing with raw energy. Her big, big, big, big wings. Glossy, smooth feathers, big big big big wings. I watch and hold to her tightly, pulling myself back up to her side. She sends another hot puff of air in the direction of the bird but the bird— _dodges—_ and the bird sails over her and a streak of the beak sends tear-like strains of red down her face.

She squalls again, forces her tail through a current and slaps it against their face, slaps it hard, and the z-ptera squeals and thrashes but she thrashes harder and it falls, falls, falls, a downward arc that slaps into the soil below. We both wince at that. And then she sags and I sag against her, my heart racing like hers, my cheek aching but thankfully not shredding into blood as hers begins to throb in her skull. She wipes at it, an afterthought, and manages to smear some of the red, but she is throwing it off, ignoring the pain.

Nyra nearly tries to downplay the ambush when the other z-ptera returns, the one we both forgot about with the heat of the other one. E-Even after those thrusts and pushes of air, there it is... Carefully swooping, Nyra whips her tail at the thing but it curls around her and snatches me easily off of her back, just like that. The claws, oozing, squish into my sides. But... they do not break skin... a-a-at least not in many places. Th-That many.

 _AAUUUUUUUGHHHHHHH!_ I hear her yelling, I hear her angry, but these birds are fast, so very fast, and Nyra is not as fast as them nor as big, not quite, and so she is left further and further trailing. I pull my cold fingers to my lips and gently blow heat on them, though I do not have much to provide. I am not as... scared as I thought I would be. Wh-Whether tears threaten to spill or no, I-I try not to think about them o-or any of... that. Be-Because here it all it, here I am, anyways.

Maybe they are not... trying to hurt me. Not as much as I thou—

"A-AAAHhh!"

Then the claw pierces flesh. Then the cold seeps in.

My breaths rasp and drag in my throat. I struggle with myself, with this cold, with my feelings. I raise my head and watch the blackness pass by and by... until a... stony... thick-walled... many-towered building approaches. O-Oh. A castle. R-Right. And the z-ptera continues ambling on toward the castle and drops me off toward the bottom, not bothering to reach the bottom before the drop.

So I hit the stone.

"AAAah-AAHHHHHhhhh!"

Hard. My head bounces off one of the steps—my fingers knit around the bulge. I-I-I try not to, I try not to, I focus really really hard but I start to shake and I start to cry and then I feel little whimpers quake from out of my shaking body, and I fold into myself and I sit on the step I hit my head on and I rock, slowly, slowly.

Finally... I remember... how to breathe. Little gasping breaths, little sobs, shaking, cold, shaking, finally I remember. And I clasp my hands around me and I shake in myself and I remember, I remember. Sitting on that cold cold step... oh, oh... I breathe, I breathe. My head is aching so so badly and it is hard to see because of tears and I think blood too, and my body in general aches from the squeeze and the torn pieces of me falling off and I wonder, I wonder why I still manage with all of these things.

My gaze sputters and I nearly lose sight of it. Of... of all of it. There is... hardly a shimmer around the castle—reminding me this is one of the memories—so I see, but only barely. My head... swims. I shake my head but then it hurts more. So I stop, and I close on myself and I rock a little more and I just focus on breathing. My heart beating, beating inside of me.

Somewhere out there... is you. I do not remember you... I can hardly imagine you—only the scrap of a scent from Trikko left to my devices—but I will hold onto that tightly... you, my precious... S-Safety. Wherever you are... whoever you are... I feel you in my heart somewhere. I-I promise that even though I did forget it... it is also not really. So when I get up I hold my heart tightly to me, and when I hobble up the rest of the stairs and nearly—but thankfully do not—trip a second time I nearly lose my breath again but I hold it. I hold that too. The great brass double doors open for me and I scoot along the carpet that is red and the wood that is not on the carpet is brown, like wood usually is—

When it hits me.

" _Dina—"_

Hits me hard. I buckle over, wincing softly.

" _Dina... You can close your eyes as we pass here. I do not wish for you to see such a... sight."_

A gasp, wrenched out of me. My hands press vainly, grab weakly, for something, for anything, and I try so hard to conjure anything out of that soft, soft, cold but soft and somehow so sweet voice... and I try to preserve it if nothing else. To remember. With the scent. I think... I think it was a boy. This person. I think he was... a boy. I cannot imagine what kind of boy, but my mind spins at the thought of it... of this boy. Gentle... gentle boy. How... intriguing: I know... his voice, and I know his... scent. And that is all. It is almost... _funny_... but it is funny enough I sit there curled up on the carpet, thick red fluff rubbing my scales weirdly, and I burst into a little fit of giggles.

Because it... it _is_ funny. It is... funny. If not even a little bit... well it... it is. Here I am, a not only once but twice amnesiac, having lost almost every strand of my being, so sorely undone that I only see null around me, and I am so weak it is only with my vivosaurs that I manage at all... this is a little bit funny. Little bit.

When I get up again, my arms shaking, it does not hurt as much as I thought it might.

I gently ease my aching feet forward, forward along the stream of red fabric. The world ahead of me hums with a sense of being. When I step back, things blink out of focus and a small stabbing pain splits my head, so after that I decide walking forward is better, as silhouettes form, as faces take shape. I swallow, but I continue, all of my tiny being... or, as it is, all I have left. B-But that is okay.

A stray glance leads me to a side window. A part of me wonders idly if Nyra will show soon... if she knows where I am. I swallow, push forward—wh-whether she comes or no is not an excuse to get all... s-scared again. Finally the nearest figure lights little ruby eyes upon me—and I think she is looking at me and my face flushes but then she turns back and I remember— _remember—_ these are memories. And I was not... a part of these memories. I-I think.

Until the part where I am posses—

O-Ohhh... I shake my head. Gently press my thumb into my forehead. I need to... calm. C-Calm down.

And refocus.

There she stands in front of me: a... marginally older version of the small child from the last memory. There is no mother or motherly figure like in the last one... be-because she has, um, _died_ , yes. But Zoazoa is very well here, and those ruby eyes are a liquid fire in her head. Tiny, tiny, much tinier than me even still, but her body burns with a feeling. Her age is... not much different from where my original memories first stemmed off. Nine... ten... however that affiliates to ancients. Coiling black strands of hair thrash about her porcelain-pale figure.

Such a... haunting body. Gaunt, eyes just so large as to take over her face, the sunken cheeks, the sullen face, the angles I could easily run my fingers over. The power ripples over her in little bubbly waves, and I wonder if she, a-also like me, did not have... control over herself. O-O-Of course the reason I do not have control and the reason she had not are very different... but the message stands. How interesting. A-And a little scary.

It is like the overflowing potential of this ancient power of hers is eating her raw. Slow nibbles only along the edges, just in subtle portions, subtle placement, but enough to prove who is actually in control here. I swallow, clapping a hand over my mouth, and I step closer. The second silhouette—the only other one in the illusion castle—a masculine build—comes into focus as his head swings toward her.

He towers. Above her. Above me. Above almost anyone I could pull from memory... maybe if I had enough thoughts to back them up I could decide if he is the tallest humanoid I have ever laid eyes on I my life... so far as I know, he is. His eyes... are also big. But not so unnaturally, almost seamlessly fitting into his face, creamy shadowy light light skin. Long knotted hair, a musty sort of... dirty blonde, which builds down past his waist easily. A thin-lipped grin, those soulless dark eyes...

Oh. Zongazonga. That is... his human form. Which means... this is one of the people he possessed... maybe even the first. If nothing else, it is the body which is responsible for helping the birth of Zoazoa. The resemblance, the haunting mostly-terror hums throughout their figures evenly so.

My mouth is dry. I cough, softly, blinking in succession.

E-Either way. He does not move, n-no, not at all. So there he is. And there she is... too. I whisper this to myself, squeaking. There they are.

"Daughter." I jolt. Zongazonga is speaking, those thin lips moving slowly, slowly. "You must be wondering to yourself why I have brought you here, and why you are no longer condemned to your tower chambers." A deep, saturating voice, one that slowly, slowly envelops you. "Well you must already know that your father is... a powerful man. And by your age his strengths had already begun to develop, and at quite the pace. Besides..." Eyes lingering her figure. "Your form hasn't even taken quadrupedal structure... which makes your potential to surpass even me palpable."

...she has... a real human form. Like a—Like a human. _Oh_. But she can possess people too. Oh...

Those big ruby eyes, for all their fire, issue not a spark in return. The opposite seems to have occurred: cold red gaze, flickering to the stone ground more so than her father. Maybe... she jolted too. When he spoke that first word.

For a moment there I stop and I wonder who my dad is. Is my dad... like him? If he... is... aaah, for all I know maybe _he_ is my—n-nnnnoo, p-probably not. Trikko would remind me that there are no facts supporting such a claim and that I can rest easy. Nyra would tell me about how vivosaur families never were much on affection anyways, just survival mostly. That you find your own way, find your own people. That it does not matter who is who.

I glance into those thick red eyes again. Reyna would scoff, would ask why I cared so much, would silently and skillfully without admitting to it back up the claims of the other two and go onto her own little thing about how it does not matter, how I do not need to think about it unless the time comes. I wonder what that means... and what would change... if that time came.

Reyna is nicer than she thinks she is. I-I think... at least.

My gaze wanders again to lithe little Zoazoa, to quiet little Zoazoa. Then her father lurches and the words continue: "And you must wonder why an offspring even matters to a man whose entire existence is practically impenetrable. Why did it matter he conceived a child? And with a human, a _very mortal woman_ " _—_ a-a very very dead woman—"may I add?" Quiet again. I realize I was holding my breath and cough in air, face streaming. "Because"—n-no stop that stop holding your breath—"you see, Daughter"—inhale exhale inhale exhale—"I am not an _idiot_."

I pause mid-cough. My other hand I quickly wipe at my eyes. The fingers ache from one bruise or another but it is hard to feel them.

What does that mean? What does he mean, he is not an idiot?

"All good tyrants having ever existed lose their lives and their souls to their business. As an ancient... it would be rather, ahhhh, _detrimental_ for me to forget about myself, or about much anything else for that matter either. Detrimental for the business and of course detrimental for _me_. And who would like that?"

For the first time in solid minutes I think Zoazoa remembers herself then. The fiery eyes spark and her lips part and she licks her lips and she looks so nearly—so nearly ready to say something in turn, her eyebrows pinching and face down-turning—when he returns to whatever it is he is trying to tell her.

"So I have a plan, Daughter. Your mother was a part of the plan but..." His face mimics hers, all over-accentuated and sullen. "Unfortunately she did not cooperate. So, as you very well know, her mortal life was lost. But," he whispers, returning to his jolly little thin-lipped grin, " _you_ are not a mortal, now are you?

Somehow I think Zoazoa dislikes this fact about herself, even more so when her father states it so carefully. "I may be a man who rather enjoys the meritorious aspect of humanity... but I am not heartless." Good tyrants... heartless... "There is only so much humanity in a meritorious aspect, and I intend to keep with myself every last piece of it.

"From this pampered, secure, and _overwhelming_ position, especially so for little mortals, I understand how easy it will be for me to, over the years... forget myself. One man can only go through so many human souls and so many human bodies before he loses his mind. Well... I intend to revert such an effect.

"Therefore I have my daughter with me. My immortal and longstanding daughter. Yes? Do you see now? Loneliness has no place in this world. Besides... perhaps with more tournaments and more people to possess... I could gift you with some other siblings too... though I am unable to ensure you that they will all be gifted with our longevity."

This is not what she was expecting. The pallor on her face, the pull in her cheeks, the nervous drop of the gaze... not what she was expecting at all. He sounds... scary—this I know well—after his reign in our present day and the desperate scramble for upheaval. But how would these words sound to the single sire of this man? To have... your father tell you... that you are wanted, despite everything he is?That you are... needed?

What if he was my dad? I-I do not mean in a real sense... I mean, hypothetically, if I were in her situation, if I did not have a foster family like Todd and his parents—as much as I care about Todd, his parents... w-well, they were not very nice parents—if this was my dad, and my dad was telling me that I was needed, would always be needed... after I cannot imagine what childhood she went through...

It would be hard... to say no. It would be very hard for me to say no.

If this were me... I think I would not say no. I-I think I would not be able to.

A sudden relief spills into me as I wipe my eyes a second time. That it was not me, that it was not me. I-I feel horrible, horrible that it was not me, that I am so grateful that it was not me... But her defiance is so great. So big, so bright, so flaming hot in her eyes, behind all of her fear of whatever else could happen... there is such great defiance.

"What if"—her voice scrabbling for placement—"what if I"—trying trying so hard to be heard, so wispy, so weak—"F- _Father_ , what if I didn't agree?" She winces at the crack but she is silent after. Those big red eyes. The twitching fingers she quickly slaps together, clasps so tightly any color they had is lost.

He simply inclines his head and asks, curiously, softly, "And why would you not?"

There is no sense of disappointment. No anger. No possible hint of hurting. No future pain. Merely a question, a lighthearted question from father to child, as if asking whether she would like to go with him somewhere fun today, if they could take a walk somewhere nice today, if they may stop and see friends somewhere different today.

But her face smashes in upon itself. Quickly she turns back and whispers, "Don't mind me. It is... fine." Swallow, nod. "I didn't... mean it."

"Good, good. I didn't think so." And it is blaring obvious he sees her dissent and her long-suffering rage, but he pats her head anyways with his little thin-lipped smile in a body, I remind myself, in a body that is not even his... own. "Now go ahead and run along. I trust you."

It is not clear for some time why he is so kind to her. I understand, I think, the more or less, um, affection between family—or at least a basic concept of it—but... he saw it as well as anyone else could, if not better, someone as calculating and complex as he. So why..?

But this illusion dissolves as well before I can ask—ask who?—and I am left sitting stunned in the blackness again.

 _AAAHHH SHIT THAT TOOK TOO FUCKING LONG ALADEE!_

Not quite. I dare lift my head and smile slowly, watching the tiny raja work his way toward me, the harsh blue lighting that flickers around Torn bursting into the quiet. Nyra overhead, beak twisted, Trikko trotting leisurely beside his best friend, Reyna toward the back, a smug smirk on her face. Somehow... she is smaller, my red-eyed Reyna, her gaze flitting from one place to another. Her guard is... softened, is wide, wide open, and she does not notice until she catches my eye and hisses before attempting to fix it herself. When they all approach and I thank them, I step toward the krypto and I ask her what is wrong but if I thought it was unlikely earlier it is... palpable, the angered tension in the air, and I am unsure she will speak at all, much less about her feelings.

But still... it is nice to be with them again. _Um... there was another one!_ The ache that hit me as I was squeezed by the z-ptera journeys on in my veins again, alongside the cold claws on my neck of the one prior, and I think about all that happened—and then I try to stop. _There was... a new illusion! L-Let me show you it and maybe... maybe we can figure out if—_

 _GEEEEEHHH!_ Aladee shoves past and when I turn his lithe body slams into my own, hit by... another oncoming— _DIN-DIN! DIN-DIN STAND BACK, STAND BACK!_

But the—But the—I hear it in their thoughts, swirling amok, worry, tension, stress, but there is not much time as a second bipedal enemy slams through the earth on a mission to hurt me or kidnap me or I do not even know what exactly they want from me.

As arrays of scales stream about me, tinged in feathers and sometimes fur, and I squirm from place to place and just try not to get too far from anyone, as Nyra takes a blast of fire head-on and Aladee slams into the soil, as Trikko is stomped on and Torn is raked by a row of rough talons, I wonder then. I wonder why they always take me on my own... why they always... Do they not want my vivosaurs to see anything? Do they not want... my vivosaurs to be there when something happens?

No... they are always fighting my vivosaurs because my vivosaurs protect me, so that I am not hurt... Besides, Trikko said it is like they are hardly there, only picked up when they are obstacles against me.

They have yet to... harm me enough to... do severe, mortal wounding. To... um, to _kill_ me.

So there is something else?

I stand there stupidly and an onyx flank flashes in front of me as she headbutts into the feathery thing that just about went off with me. _Dina, focus!_ she yells, and I snap to attention and quickly pull up her side, sit on her back. _Ulhhhhg! When will you_ learn _, you... Ahh, yelling won't get you to listen any harder._ She ends her small tangent by stepping onto the z-ptera. _There._

...It is always quiet... and dark... whenever the illusions begin. And usually it is... one of the zombiesaurs who take me there or pin me down or force me to watch... it is usually not of my own will that I go... and then I get hurt. The bruises and scars... so much fighting...

 _Mm..?_ Reyna stirs from beneath me. _What are you saying now? Dina... I mean... well._ She snorts. _Well, it's better than nothing, I guess. Might as well._ Without another word, she stalks off to the surrounding darkness... where we leave Torn and Nyra and... and everyone else behind. She goes off in the first direction but I recall where the zombiesaurs came from, more of a general direction, and I quietly ask Reyna to steer left more. After that she goes straight, but if she starts to slope one way or another I ask her to turn back, just a little bit.

She does not find the directions any fun. _Why can't these illusions or whatever show up just in one spot? Ugh! Why show them to you anyways? They'll eventually overtake us—too many of them either way—but... gah, what's the_ point _, Dina? Seriously, though._ She snorts off as we go on, but she is not silent.

Somehow... she feels cold beneath me.

 _Um... Reyna, I think—I think... they are scary, but... I do not mind, um... seeing them._ My gaze falters. _Zoazoa... is different than who I thought she was._

My krypto realizes who I had compared her to. She hisses softly. _Some bratty child?_

 _I-I thought you did not mind childr—_

Suddenly her voice spikes. _ALADEE IS NOT A CHILD!_ Pause. Breath, breath. Then, quietly, _Aladee is not a child. Maybe sometimes he acts like a child... but he's not some little... subconscious... dim-witted... thing. He's more than a thing. He's someone. Alright? He's... someone. You should know that better than anyone, I'd think... hhhhh... I mean, of course you would._ She does not elaborate, merely breathes hard for some time.

 _S-Sorry, Reyna._

 _Stop that._

It is quiet then. Quiet for some time.

I think about the voice I heard in my head, the one that told me they did not want me to see such a "sight", I think something... scary. There is an air of protection in the lilt of the tone, a careful murmur in my ear. Warmth. Gently.

I think about protection for some time.

Finally, when I raise my eyes again—there she is. The matted black air, the red red eyes, the gaunt face. Little Zoazoa, streaming through a group of people whose height is similar so I think age is mostly the same, little kids like her. She is asking—I hear her little voice—for something... for someone. For, no, that is not a name... for to be "friends". Something about it hurts so much I have to look away. Something about it hurts me, the quiet question, the crack in the voice... the laughing children, laughing at her, laughing at the girl who can turn into a vivosaur because her father—her father is their ruler, is _him_ , and they never say his name, they whisper _him_ with a kind of fear that hurts like the desperation in her voice for friends.

And that is how it is for years at a time. Asking, asking: met with rejection. Avoided, ignored, silence was her friend... and they had fear and—and it reminds me of things, of old memories that peel like paint from old walls and I whisper to Reyna that this is... really sad.

And this is how her father befriended her. This is why her father was not afraid. Because why should you be afraid when you are the one everyone else fears most?

Reyna is quiet as she watches what I see through my eyes. The years passing, memories blurring, Zoazoa stringing into an older woman—her age and mine perhaps the same by this point—and she is still... very alone. I think the time with her father, however that was... was not as real as she needed it to be. I think that as much as she may have wanted it inside of her, it was not enough. And she looks so tired, so worn... after so much rejection.

Still there is fire. A tiny fire in her eyes. Hidden by glassy stares and a haunting body but... but a fire it is, and a fire it will not cease to be.

My krypto is silent throughout the entirety of the illusion. Not until it peters out and we go back—or at least in a general area of where "back" is—does she speak. _Well._ Softly. _Well. You were... well. You weren't wrong. She's not all that different... now is she?_

But maybe I am not the only one who relates to her. Reyna is quiet then, but not a self-enforced angry quiet where she yells at anyone who pesters her. A... different quiet, one she is hesitant to break but does so slowly, and then readily. _It's funny. This is the girl who stole your entire existence up to these little strands of whatever. This is the person we should hate with all of our beings and be ready to flip out of you, soon as possible. But even so I must admit that your vivosaurs, as understanding as they are, are not willing to give you up. No matter what's up. I mean... we are rather selfish, powerful beings. And that is_ your _body, not hers, no matter the 'sad backstory'._

Sigh.

 _We worry about you._ There it is—once again—the look—that look they all have—the one where they see something, something inside of me. _We worry about you a lot, you know that? Dina, you've never had much of a will. As much as someone tries, it's not all that easy to get you... passionate, not truly, not painfully, honestly passionate... so far as we know. No, it's not easy to get to you at all._

 _So we worry. And it doesn't help when these sorts of things happen._

Oh.

 _Because why would you fight? Why would_ you _fight? Let's be honest here. We don't remember anything you really... had a motive for. Sure, you're nice to others, sure, you've got some pretty stable manners... but what's that without motive? I'm just saying._

There is purpose—I feel purpose gleaming in those red eyes. She has purpose. She has... someone. Someone important enough every passing day kills her the longer she stays silent.

Purpose... I whisper it to myself.

 _Of course... there are all kinds of reasons to live. But here you are, and here it all is... and we all know that Dina wouldn't hurt someone even if they were literally eating her from the inside out._

I drop my head.

 _I am sorry..._

There is recline. A soft—coughing—laugh.

 _You should be._ I flush.

And she is right... is she not?

 **Is she? IS SHE?**

 **BUH BUHHHH**

 **Haha, that was a more intense Dina chapter... yeaah...**

 **Oh, the dialogue she heard, the "protection" thingy from earlier in the chapter was something from chapter 3 in The Stone Fossil Fighter, so it's not like it came out of nowhere. XD  
Just if anyone was curious**

 **that's not it word for word, like I didn't paraphrase but I only used parts of the dialogue, because of course she wouldn't remember the entire thing... but there you go xD**


	12. Rt: Feat

**Mmm... I'm excited for when I get to do more stuff with Todd, and Luk, and Mier, because I'm just thinking about stuff and they're all pretty fun characters, haha. Like you have dress boy, and then you have Luk who is surprisingly, ah, dirty, but at the same time he's very serious after all he's been through as a servant for Rupert's father (and we haven't even seen his dirty side pff), and then we have Mier the new guy who we all didn't even know the gender of until he confirmed it himself, haha.**

 **I wasn't actually sure what to make the gender of the character who's in Mier's role so I messed around with it and we got Mier. Basically. (though I realized a little late Pauleen's the only girl... ahh it's fine, outside of Raptin Dino's only friends are basically all girls)**

 **He's... well he's Mier.**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 12: Feat

 _Rupert_

 _Gaaaah._ I turn back; Gyntis seethes as he limps back from the attack. As his lip curls back and those foggy white eyes blearily glance toward us he stiffens. _Tessa?_ Cough. She stiffens too, then. _TESSA BEHIND YOU, DAMMIT KEEP A WATCH ON ALL SIDES YOU—_

 _BRREEHUHHHGHH!_

The mound of earth behind us explodes. She squeals and then she runs, she runs hard enough her feet slap into the earth and she cuts the skin with the stones beneath, too terrified to be careful. Raising her head, only then she turns. Pauleen and Mier, closer to our side now, scoot into her shadow. They watch as well. Their eyes are wide, but Sivan snorts, his yellow fur fluffing about his ruff. I think he does not find this strange or all that scary, really, just amusing. Those beady eyes digging into the musty plain, his body unmoving and then violently surging.

Does he find this opponent our prey? How... funny.

But the longer we stand idle, oh, the more hunks of soil we lose beneath us and the more Tessa shuffles beneath me, the more she darts nervously from place to place until a final jolt onto safer ground, though she does not always look before she lands and lands herself in a heap of limbs. Nimble Mier—he must run on some form of survival instinct from what I have seen of him so far—all of those canned foods—his cabin on the edge of a snowy cliff—he yanks Pauleen from where his arm twists around her hand and he pulls the both of them further from the soil as it sinks, sinks into a pit behind them.

Dust. I brush my hand out in front of me, the dust collecting when I lay still. It edges my throat and I cough, softly. The blanket—I recall it weakly tied about me even after the wreckage—I pull it from the knot it became around me and pillow it in front of my face. Breath is a little more difficult to come by but I feel better.

"Mmmmh." He is watching, those dagger-like golden eyes preening. "Danger. Pauleen, dear, what have you gotten us into?" Releasing the fierce hold on her arm, he glimpses toward her. "Really though. What in the world did you do to wake this _beast_ up?" As if to imply matters, he stomps one booted foot against the soil.

Pauleen jolts. "Ullhhhgh, diga-don't diga-doooo that! You _idiot_ , you're just like Todd!" It appears Mier takes offense to this insult, to which the pinkette girl scoffs, her lips sharply curved into respite. "A-And how the hell should I know, anyways! I wake up and I'm... I'm...! Nnnnnnh!" She pulls out her arms into the snowy landscape. "Gi-Give me a break!"

Mier snorts.

Her emerald eyes narrow. He snorts again. "Ssshhhhhut up!" Pauleen raises one hand and nimbly streaks her palm against his face—only she misses, he having stepped back just enough to dodge, and her lip curls.

While they busy themselves, I glance back into our slowly shrinking landmass. Our waking ancient has taken the liberty to close off us even further. I raise my voice and ask the two of them, their going mercifully silent, "Should we make an effort? He is... rather fast."

Then their heads raise. Pauleen bites her lip with a squeak and Mier... sighs. He shakes his head just slowly, stuffs his hands into the pockets of his oversized jacket, and he murmurs, "No, we're probably all lost by now."

Silence.

"YOU'RE JUST GOING TO SAY THAT?" I daresay Pauleen would slap him again if she had any chance of hitting him. "YOU! THIS... WEIRDO I JUST FRICKIN MET WHO SHOWED UP WITH AN ACTUALLY-MAKING-AN-EFFORT-TO-TALK RUPERT! WHO THE HELL DIGA-DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

"Mmmh! Oh, I can answer that!" A sly grin takes his face. "The name's Mier! That is who I think I am! Nothing more, and nothing—"

A threatening rumble surges into our ranks, shaking the earth, bouncing my pachy and bouncing me above her. I grip tightly to her flank—which she grunts to—the world splitting into cracks and gashes of broken trees, the earth rapidly filling with leaves, leaves, and upended dirt and leaves and more leaves until it spills so easily into cracks as it all melds into holes.

"Mier," I whisper and he turns toward me, "you do not really think we will die here, now do you?" and I think he likes this response, as he loses the dopey stare with the shake of the head and those eyes match mine. I still have to look away but I—I manage.

"No. I don't." Pause. His smile grows; I just catch the lift in the edge of my vision. "But I must say if we're gonna do something we better do it in the next, like, two seconds."

So I murmur "So it is," and it is. And in those next two seconds he proposes I decide to lift out my hand and he—and he takes it, and he pulls his way up on top of Tessa behind me. Pauleen pushes back toward her Sivan—where there is room—as Tessa is only so large a pachy—and then the earth explodes into yet another cacophony of voices. But my mind stays on my action... on something so small as... my hand, held out to him—and I wonder why I did it... but I did. Mier is... not so bad, I do not think. At least, that is what I want to believe. And... maybe he likes that. That I want to believe in him.

The pinkette rests his head beside mine and whispers by my ear, "So what now, exactly?" His body presses close but not close enough to break skin, to touch against me, and I... appreciate the gesture. It is strange how he can be so... personal, and yet gratefully distant all in one place. How he teases with the people he has yet to know and willfully breaks barriers if only to know... what they like, what they do not like. Sure, it... it puts people off, and it must easily turn others against him but... I respect that. I think... I respect that.

I smile to myself. But only to myself, and only for but a moment.

Then the yowling outside of us intensifies and I have to turn back to Mier. He watches me as I do, watches my widening own golden eyes, the flighty and distant ones, watches my nervous pressure as I brush against him and the way I still try to situate myself formally, even so, even here. "Mier..." Oh, how do I propose such a preposterous... "Mier, I must ask..." Oh, no, no, how do I start this... "Ah, you see... I...

"I am lost." Honesty. "I am lost. I cannot begin to tell you where we go from here." My cheeks must have flushed again because I feel the heat singe me, and I cannot keep my gaze upon him yet again—how strange it feels, to let others see when you must step down, but truly I do not know what to do with myself, with any of us, and one can only hear the screams of nightmares outside of our heads.

And... I don't know. I want to trust him. And he... I think I can. I must be horribly desperate but I think he can. And even so, in comparison to our ragtag team of poor Pauleen who has just woken from a bed of ice and myself unable to respond strongly enough to warrant strength... well, he is the only one we can even think who may be capable.

He watches me as I lose my nerve and turn back around, and then he murmurs, "Yeah." He does not elaborate, merely goes on. His voice is stronger afterward. "So we should probably first focus on _not_ giving into the voices. Which you've done, and I'm pretty sure everyone else has done. Which is good." How he speaks so calmly and strongly with a storm of screeching around him I cannot begin to comprehend but he does it and he is... crazy, I want to say. Or perhaps the polar opposite. "But as you should've been able to tell by now, there is no way we're fighting this ancient. Or most any honestly. Did you know that? You need a lot more power than this—like, _ancient_ power—to fight ancient."

I pause.

Really? I... I never did. Never... occurred to me. A-Aah... no wonder it was Dina alone who could beat Zongazonga with his daughter inside of her. And... well. The only other ancients I have encountered left when they felt so, so I... had no other way to compare it to. Whatever it is Mier has gone through to be so severe upon survival technique, he has been driven well and he... How did he know that? Has he... come across enough ancients to verify it? And how did he win? With... _Illit_? No, I—this is all speculation, only his truth would illuminate such a thought. And besides, the world is literally falling to shambles around us. There are better times.

"So you know. We're pretty much screwed here."

And with that I tell Tessa we are leaving this place now. While Mier's comment does contain a level of barb, I understand it well enough: these battles... are not our battles. Not... yet, at least. Not until we stand a chance against such a... threat. How... unfortunate, then. They are so overbearing, so powerful... and still I... still _we_... oh, and why would an ancient ever wish to join our cause anyways?

Tessa is fast. I never noticed that about her. How fast she is. She just... charges on, her legs pumping, her body propelling her past any borders she finds, and even in the face in danger she always manages to at least leave it hurting, if not beaten. The mutilated ground shivers with her very very solid weight and I find myself holding my breath as she tears through dusty confines and leaps over twisted openings and manages, manages, again and again, although landing awkwardly every so often, she does not falter.

 _Why_ am I so blind to these things? Goodness. I must... pay more attention.

Mier laughs quietly through the breeze. One hand has shifted to my shoulder—for support, I suspect—because otherwise it is a little unnerving—and his hair whips, some of the longer pink strands twirling into my view for seconds, then vanishing, little streaks of color in an otherwise desolate landscape. Gyntis, while frail, hurtles on past the barriers proudly if not somewhat arrogantly, and Pauleen follows with a swiftness I am grateful for.

The surroundings bustle with an urgency about us, everything bouncing with the freak movement Tessa utilizes, her bounding from place to place and swerving to just barely avoid yet another tree or a branch or a freakish boulder in the road... and oh, the longer it takes the more holes are in the ground later and I can feel the breathlessness in her lungs... she tires... and I find it increasingly difficult to inhale...

when she trips... and she falls. Falls hard—  
and the strain forces us on top of her to fall as well—to fall hard—  
and I so happen not to fall at a... very smart angle.

I feel it happening before I hear it, before it actually even happens, the crush of the weight on top of the snow and beneath the rest of me, the twist, the snap, the rushing pulse of throbs arcing through my foot, mostly at the heel but spreading through toes and then I lose sight of the pinprick of where it all came from as the real pain rushes in and it is all I can think of all I can feel just throb throb throb throb in my foot going so far as up my leg, even, my left... leg.

And then I hear it. A soft _kssh_ in comparison to the blood rushing through my ears, my hands slowly pressing into the snow in front of my, my entire being... shaking.

It all happened so quickly. I did not know it could happen so... quickly.

My head hurts again as well. And... there are other places but it is hard to keep track with all of the aching from my foot... I think... I lost my shoe at some point... because I feel the ice somehow pressing into it and it is... cold—and then I do not feel the ice and I realize this is _his_ chance, his chance to _take_ my mortal soul and _devour_ it or... or whatever it was he said, my memories have skewed, it is hard to keep track of much of anything—anything—anything other than—

Other than Dina—and if I die—if I let this pit take me—then— _then—_

Before I adjust to the vertigo I find my hands digging deeper, farther into the snow. And after that follows the rest of me... as painstakingly as it goes. Slowly... Slowly. My breaths come out in gasps and I really struggle this time to breathe, I-I cannot even call how I felt prior anything like this and then—and then I hear those _bloody voices_ in my head again, the screaming, the dying, the choking of filth and of dirt and begging, begging for redemption... for... for safety, for freedom, for help, help, _help_. And it is so loud... when I am the only one left. A-Am I? Have they all... left me? They escaped... yes?

I keep going, though. Because if I stop... if I stop...

When I hear her voice. And then I do stop breathing altogether for a moment there. The gentle whisper, so soft, so sweet, so pure, so pained and bloodied and screaming, screaming, and why is it there, and why do I hear it, and oh, goodness, I _despise_ his reading into my thoughts, delving into my soul, finding the voice of the girl I love and shoving it into his little facade.

He made a mistake... when he did that.

My fingers bump against something and I realize, face strained, oh, I realize it is the root... of a tree. Carefully I follow it, as quickly as I manage which is not fast at all but I have yet to falter and I have yet to die and if I keep at this, if I keep at this... then my hands find the branches and carefully I come up, inch by inch by excruciating inch... until I stand on both feet.

The pain of it nearly sends me to the ground at once.

I've never broken a bone before. I never thought... never thought it was so, so _bad_... It is merely by the force of my hands holding me up that I do not collapse but it is by that thin, thin strand of feeling alone, and oh, that strand is so thin I feel it shaking with every motion I make. Quickly I lift my foot off the ground but doing so I bend my leg and that only adds another world of hurt so I switch back to both feet on the cold, snowy, crunchy earth, hands desperately clasped against this tree. Of all things.

Eventually her voice is not the only one but is reinforced by a scream that is not unlike what I think it would sound like if Dinu ever tried to utter such a cry... but hearing her voice within the ensemble only proves she is not there... as she was not here in the first place. A tactic of fear, I presume... well thankfully I have gotten over my wariness of ancients—or my ability to bend to their will so easily—well—mostly.

Voices return, screeching down the side of my skull. And Luk, then. And Todd. Popping up rapidly and loudly, like ugly little bruises. Mier, then, too, or at least I think what Mier would sound like if he genuinely raised his voice.

Other ones too. Somewhat recognizable to me but I find myself unable to draw face to voice. Perhaps... the others are still nearby. Or the ancient thinks they are as _—hah—_ why waste energy on the one who broke his foot when it is obvious he cannot run any longer?

...no. Do not think that way. It is with this motivation in mind that I take my first step—and nearly lose my footing for the second time. But if I—if I—I _try_ hard enough then—then maybe—then it—slightly it—goes away. Slightly. Although this is replaced by a sense of dizziness so I cannot say to what extent it is useful.

Useful enough to get me moving.

Put one foot... in front of... the other. And soon... you are walking... across the floor. Put one foot... in front of... the other. And soon... you are walking out the—

My palm outstretched saves me from a scrape on the forehead by the tree in front of me. Maybe if I... if I am faster than the prey he thinks me... if I am strategic enough—although the real question is what strategy—then... then I make it. Make it? Do I? I... would like to think so. There is not much to hope for but maybe life, maybe life—most... certainly.

The trees are beginning to thin so I must be doing something correctly. I-I think... the ground goes soft in some areas, soft suggesting collapse soon enough if I am not careful, but I do not have the luxury of care I am literally moving my broken foot and damaged leg again and again and again so as much as I would like to be careful I need to... I need to go.

If there is anything I have learned after all of these ancients... it is that as much as I keep them out of my head... they are still on the outside. Which is alright... but I cannot fight them. Not... on my own. I wish I could and I have tried to on so many idiotic and desperate attempts but it will not work. Not on my own.

When did the treeline... grow so hazy..? My motions stagger through the snow, through piles and piles of icy snow... my frigid toes numb after all of this exposure... but if... if I keep going... No it... it matters not of my state—I must not... must not let it... kill me. Because that... that would be... bad. Death... would end everything. And... what would happen, anyways... if I did fall..?

Well. I am not falling. Not... falling...

I think at some point I lose consciousness. The next thing I know there is someone in my face and that someone is so much warmer than the air outdoors and the snow and the cold... and I think there are hands somewhere around my—around my— _ow, ow_... Around my... leg. And they must know because after my little shock of pain the fingers are tender around the bending point.

Recognizing the pinkish tannish face that swims in front of me does not quite sate my feelings. But I... the words... the words inside of me are so hard to come by that I cannot focus... trying to piece them together, not truly... so I cannot say anything as his swirls of pink hair bat into my face. I can... hardly move as it is. The pain... while numb... has begun to seep into my being once more... and I start to lose focus again.

His lips are... moving. What is it? What is it..? Somehow the words do not match with his motions... but if I squint enough they connect, just about... and it takes me more time to decipher the sounds into words, into meanings, into something that actually affects me... and it is not until the pain returns that I realize what he said.

"This is gonna hurt."

But of course.

My focus slams into the earth as all in sight rises above me but I look at it so blearily, my gaze so peckish that the colors intermingle until I am not sure what it is I see, and by then I must have bled into dreams because I cannot re _m_ e _mber_ m _uc_ h a _fter_ ward.

 _And I see someone... and things start to piece themselves together again. It is a painstaking process, but not one I mind waiting for, and so I do. And as I do the floaty hint of surrealism grasps my surroundings... bubbly, hazy surroundings... but I see this person, so it will be alright. Or... so I feel it shall be._

 _My fingers coil about her pale arm... stroke to her fingers... and then I take hers. She is not toward me but I know her hair of course... the long and orange coils that bounce somewhat when she moves. The small body, thin and tinier than most anyone I have met... but not all that much smaller than me... or Todd, or Luk or anyone else for that matter. But small enough to hold... when I need to. And I do. So I do._

 _Have I always been so... so gentle? I suppose that... it is how it has been. How... funny, though, how delicately I would hold someone who is not nearly as fragile as I am. Although... that is it, is it not? Because... she is too, yes? Somehow I find comfort in that... in similarity. She murmurs something and I smile, slowly, something so sweet as her..._

 _I ask her to turn... but she refuses._

" _Dina?" She giggles again but she also refuses again, so I am left with denial. Why? Well... what a silly girl. I cannot see how this affects the current situation so I carefully lift my fingers to just below her chin—the strange yet somehow comforting little scales rubbing against me—and I turn her face, gently, slowly, only now she does not even struggle anyways._

 _When I lay eyes upon her face I think my heart stops beating for a moment._

" _Torn!" What in the world! "Why! Why are you"—the curls, the scales, the form, the color, why is the face so red and pointy and those big brute yellow eyes, the forked tongue, the burning hatred in disguise?_

I snap into consciousness and whisper something I myself do not even catch only to lift my head and find myself back within the confines of the cabin. I sit atop the bed—that squeaky bed—in the bedchamber—which must mean where Mier himself sleeps—how on these coils I cannot imagine—but here I am, here I am... I slowly raise my head, raise my body, and look upon wooden walls.

Torn's face... goodness me. Now I cannot even have her in my dreams. Well.. that is alright. It... It keeps me awake, I suppose. Keeps me searching for the real one... but, but his face, of all things possible that could have been there? And why _him_? He despises me, Torn. I have not seen him—nor Trikko and the others—since their disappearance... yet there he was on the face of my Dina. What, _his_ Dina..? But was he not the one who pertained to crush on another vivosaur as it was? Oh, Torn. I forgot... about his bias.

He is nice to Dina. Maybe even... searching for her know, I do not know. But he does not like me. No. No, he does not. Strange how the one human he despises the most is the one who is kind to her as well. Jealousy, perhaps? He was... her protection for so long? But I... but _I_... It is no use. I shake my head slowly, and I try not to think of the unsettling dream. It has been... some time since I truly slept. And my foot—oh.

When I gingerly lift it from one side of the bed... squirming to roll out from the covers... coils snapping below... there is not hardly as much pain in my leg as there was prior... and the bandaging on my foot, while not exemplary enough to eradicate the hurt... still it does marvels for me. I can... move my leg, even so. I can... actually move it now.

Should I stand?

No I think I will not. I am... dizzied just thinking of it.

Mier. My mind snaps into action and I turn to face the wall, where the pinkette himself leans against. "You—You were right." I struggle to remain focused. "It... did hurt. I think..."

Somehow the boy offers me a toothy grin. "Yeah, but you passed out before it actually got bad," just quietly whispered in return. A roll of the eyes... but I think he is being playful. It is here that I remember the sharp golden eyes... and here I realize I have less difficulty searching into him.

"Why come after me?" I ask him before I really think. It... It surprises me. Greatly. There are tangled moments all in my head... but I know I did not collapse in the cabin. I was not as close to it as I could have been, not nearly close enough to be seen by the front porch, or even the windows for that matter. And... I do recall the setting of my leg... though not where this was. But... even so...

It dawns on me... how vulnerable I am in front of this boy. How much of my weaknesses... he has seen.

Face flushing, I turn back. This is when he coughs softly and he answers, with or without my listening to him. "I'm not exactly a good guy. You've seen, ahhh, enough of that side by now. All of y'all have, c'mon, let's be honest. But... _I_ dunno... I like doing things when I don't have to go out of my way to do 'em. Then it doesn't bother me. Then it feels... a little nice. But it's just work if I have to put so much energy into... helping. I don't like that. Call it strange but I don't.

"But you," quiet again, "for some reason you made it easy for me. So I did what I did. Got you out of your little mess. I've set more'n enough bones in my life so patching you up wasn't all that much." It does not feel like 'all that much', but I stay silent. Maybe it is with my focused silence that he can tell I hear what he is saying, every word of it. Maybe that makes him... a little more bold. To tell a little more of the story. "Besiiiiiides. You're funny. I like that." Soft laugh.

Funny...

It feels nice... to be called funny. Maybe it sounds stupid, just a bit... but somehow I find it nice. A warmth in my heart. Something small... something so humanely myself I hardly find it reasonable to be real... something that shows appreciation.

Whoever said it may have been right when they told me she is not the only one in this world. I think it was Luk.

Oh. Luk. _Luk_. And Todd—and— _Pauleen_.

I think he hears my gasp because he goes on. "Oh, man... man, I was totally gonna guess what you're thinking about because I swear I thought I knew what it was but then I realized there are at least, like, five possibilities about what that even is, so never mind."

"Such as?" I whisper. Something about him piques my interest... time and time again.

"Hah." Mier snorts. "First I thought you were wondering about the whole 'setting bones' thing, like how do I even know how to do that? Then maybe it was your vivosaurs, but now that I think about it you've never been very responsive to them anyways"—ah, and there is my twinge of guilt—"and it's here I remember your friends. Oh! Dina makes four. From what I know about you, there's always something you have to say about her."

I swallow. When did I mention her name aloud again..?

"Sooooo... five. Ahhh, maybe how you got here? Oh, wait, you already asked that. Gah. I'm sure there's a fifth one around here somewhere..." Funny... he called me. But... maybe he is a little funny too.

Is it sad I must consider whether or not I find something amusing before actually understanding the emotion?

"I wanted to know where my, ah, friends are?" I murmur, shying away somewhat from his suggestions.

Quiet laugh. I glance over; Mier's face is somber, musing. "Well." I sense his noting my turn toward him and his tone shifts. "Y'see, they got a mite bit rambunctious so I kicked them out of the house for you."

My lip twists. "Really now? How... ah... thoughtful of you."

"PSSSHhhh. You could say that."

He thinks I am funny...

With a shake of his head he goes on. "Nah, I didn't actually do that. They are pretty loud, though... like, _pretty_ loud, so I did banish them from my room." His face pinches. "They were giving me a headache. Auhh, and I thought it was bad with just Toddy and Luk. Oh, gosh, what is _wrong_ with Pauleen? She's so... ahhhhhh."

So she is alright as well. Thank goodness. "Yes, the three of them are a little noisy at times. But... I do not know. Todd was Dina's foster brother, so she knows him rather well. And... Pauleen befriended the two of them, so in extension I can say she befriended me. Luk was one of my father's servants. He... was my friend. In a way." Not... quite, for some long time. Oh, why am I so weak in the act of relationships?

Mier is watching me. There is a strange light in those golden eyes. "Yeah. I can see that." He is slow as he does it, as if ready to retreat in the possibility where I disapprove of his actions, but slowly and carefully, he takes a seat at the edge of his bed. Looking into my own eyes. Not unkindly. "Y'all make up a funny group. You and your girlfriend's foster brother and your friend and your once-servant who's now your friend. Your vivosaurs... Myself."

His voice, while accentuated and stilted, and hinted at a southern touch, is soothing. I cannot explain it. When quiet... he comes off much gentler than most of the people I have met in my life. "I met them at a tournament, if you heard of the Caliosteo Cup? It was recent. Just before this one in Nomadistan." These old memories manage to comfort me. Nostalgia... "A... An ancient had staged the entire cup, so unfortunately there was a point where he attempted to control Todd and... hurt him, in the process. He nearly hurt Dina however many times as well. And he managed... once or twice." Oh, Dina... how often have you gotten yourself into a frightful circumstance?

Too often.

"There is a small handful of others I have begun to consider... important to me." But a clutch; but a clutch is better than none at all. "They are not here right now. In Nomadistan, that is. Todd is—he came because he was hurt badly. We all... came to visit him for this cup. And for the others... I am unsure where... Some may remain in Caliosteo." However I would not put it against them if our friends in the BareBones Brigade had gone off somewhere else in the process of everything that has occurred. And Joe Wildwest... well. He was always a bit of a hero, no? Must be off somewhere in need, I would presume.

Mier has gone to smiling at the floorboards. "Mmm. That sounds nice. And weird. Didn't you say you were, like, considered super popular or something to the main body?" He... remembered my asking him. "Then that's good... that you found people who mean something to you. It sounds like it wasn't easy for you."

"Ah." I lose my focus too. "No, it... was not all that simple. I was lucky, when I found Dina. She had not even known who I was... and I was so confused at this possibility, with my such blinding... popularity... that she interested me. So I found myself going after her. Her... perspective was refreshing. Ah—Is. It still is for me."

"Hmmhmmm..." He nods gently. "Yeah." Just quietly.

I let out a small breath. "It was disbelieving when I learned she had feelings for me. How could... she reciprocate mine? I suppose it was a little strange: being so used to others already inebriated by what they thought of me. And there was never an in-between, either love or hate. It was... preposterous." I shake my head. "And yet... this girl had come into my life. This girl I... actually wanted to be around, always. I suppose after all of the frivolous feeling that came from everyone else throwing themselves at me, I did not expect it was possible someone could... truly love me."

Mier giggles. "Oh that's just precious."

I stay silent after that. It is... difficult to come up with anything else to say. He surprised me. Surprising... Mier. And he never knew of me either, no opinions printed upon him. He just saw me as he saw anyone he had never met before.

And now here we were. How... strange.

"Mier... if I may ask," I venture, "why live out in this wilderness? Did you build yourself this cabin?"

He is quiet. I consider reassuring him he has no need to speak but then he does. "Yeah, ah... people can be annoying. Like, really annoying. So... my family didn't have a very pretty opinion on stuff, and they're sort of independent people and didn't wanna live in the castle with everyone else. Some point in history, someone had built this cabin... and well. I'm the only one still around."

"O-Oh." I wince. "My apologies."

"Nah." He shakes his head. "It's fine. I don't really care... but I must say, a reluctant part of me kinda likes all the bustle some new people give this place. It's been a bit empty for so long..." And as he draws out, I scoot closer to him, if but slightly—oh, this leg of mine—though as I sit by him, he turns toward me and in those soft golden eyes of his there is something powerful, something compelling I cannot begin to explain.

I get the feeling he is trying to tell me something about himself, that his words mislead, but that he cannot quite put into words how exactly it is.

And that is when the door slams into the wall and a certain Mistress strides in. She plows upon the bed and rests her head on my leg—gently. _Ruuupert._ Is she pouting? _Why didn't you tell me you were awake now? Deaaarie, I was so worried. You must stop acting so irrationally! Ah, it makes me nervous!_

Mier turns from whatever it is he was taking about to my mapo queen, quickly reverting to stroking her head. _Mistress! Why, hello there! Don't mind me stealing your Rupert now!_

 _Oh, you hush!_ She giggles softly. And then she turns to me, somewhat shaky with embarrassment. _Rupert, did you know this boy is the reason you're feeling much better today? My goodness! Your foot was a mess! And... And your leg was bent as well! Ohhh... I-I know I make it sound a little strange, but I promise you it was so... so unsightly when he carried you in through the door and you were just out cold—your head rested on his shoulder—oh, you poor thing—ohhhh, we thought you were gone! Oh, Rupert! Oh, dearie!_

The longer she speaks the further I retreat into myself until my hands have cloaked over my face, myself bent. He didn't.

But the memories swirling about in the mind of my mapo queen dare me to think otherwise, my flushed and unconscious face, his— _carrying—_ well I suppose it only reasonable as I was in no state to walk myself, and besides, I was unconscious, but... still, it sends a rush of heat into me. Shame? Is this shame or embarrassment or am I merely stressed by the thought of all of this contact?

Physical touch... is not something I abide to readily. I need time. And, well, there was no room for my feelings when I went and smashed my foot.

I stir when the soft muffled sounds of laughter arise. Is Mier... laughing? Oh... goodness. I manage to untangle myself from my flush and turn toward the boy, and I murmur, "Um... thank you. Mier." I lose sight of him when I close my eyes, cheeks inflamed. Oh, goodness, my state of emotion...

"Heh! Aaaah, don't mention it. Like I said... I don't do things for others without a reason. And, I mean... you're strong. Maybe you don't think so, and you probably feel like crap, obviously, I mean anyone can tell how much you like that girl of yours. But... you're strong. Dude, you almost made it all the way to the cabin with that foot of yours all screwed up." He can't look at me either... but he is smiling. Mier.

"Ah—I..." Shake my head. "Thank... you. A-Again. Thank you." I can hardly keep my gaze on one thing let alone him or even Mistress. "You... You must be strong too, for, ah, for what you..."

"Pff..." He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, little bit." He lifts his arms and flexes as if to accentuate this. While of thinner stature... there is some level of strength inside of him. Those golden eyes flash at me again, and they burn with the feeling he did not describe earlier.

Then I smile, if but slightly, too. "Really... I thank you. If... If you were not here, I doubt I would have made it much further than what I managed on my own." What a strange feeling... acknowledgment. I... I think I do not like it very much—but... but he did help me, did he not? Without the assistance... well. So much as I would rather discard the notion, it is truth that without Mier I would... be in a dire situation.

He does not respond to that, merely turns to the wall and nods, slightly. Mistress curls up by me—mindful of my injury. Soon following is a tiny brown vivosaur in such petite form I am shocked by the difference, and a certain pachy stands nervously by the edge of the door frame. _Pippy?_ So now he is here too. He leaps upon the bed and happily situates himself in the covers. _And.. is that you, Tessa?_

Small nod. _Y-Yeah, um. Hi._

I dip my head. Little smile. _Hi._

She looks away, a grimace biting her lip. Pippy giggles from his spot beside me.

 _It's okay, Mistress._ She turns toward him, bemused. _Alright, lassie? It's okay. See... I think I've been through enough shenanigans to get over this by now! So it's... it's okay! Dino, as I've said, well..._ Those little lilac eyes are overcome with nostalgia. He swallows, nods. _I think you'd like him... i-if he's still around today to, um, to be seen by you. I think... you'd like him._ Now he is looking at me, and the little hopeful look upon him is too pure to digress from.

I look up, and a new figure is standing in front of the door. There is no chance for a thought or anything as the boy springs up onto the bed, causing all else to spill over and off of it—sitting on my leg in the process—and crying "RUUUPYYYYYYYYYYYY!" only at the top of his lungs.

The jolt of pain that he brings with him has me speechless and breathless so in a moment of idiocy I say nothing and just stare at that freckled face as Todd giggles, so proud of himself for his little ploy. With a gesture of his hand, the plushly-dressed bluenette saunters on in and sits beside him and smiles slightly. But I think he is battling anger again. Oh, dear.

Ah—yes—I try to pull at Todd, to get him off of me, the pain beginning to force tears in my eyes—but that stubborn oaf has yet to move and I struggle again with this weight and my face red and this throbbing in my body in my head in my heart and oh, why, why does he have to be so stubborn—

"Todd! Get off!"

I sag as the weight disappears. My head rests upon the pillows, my eyes dazedly grasping the ceiling above us... what a strange ceiling... so many little stars and—ah, no, I think that is the pain speaking to me... but even as it wears away there are still the stars, the black backdrop... How peculiar.

After wrestling the boy off of me, Mier glances up too. Did he forget about the ceiling? I had not... seen it before. It is nice. Yes... I like it. Being midday, I wish I could compare it to a night sky, but it appears that time has yet to come.

Luk winces as his friend struggles upon the bed again. He gives my leg a berth and situates himself by Luk. Not blushing, the shameless thing, but giggles permeate the chamber. "Sorryyy! I got all excited and stuff! Sorry, Rupy!"

"It is fine." The calm in my tone surprises even me. So does the little smile on my face.

But... it _is_ fine. Todd can grow more rambunctious, certainly more than the others, but... I am fine. It is fine. He nearly left lasting damage, and thankfully he did not, and I would rather not dwell on the situation any longer.

"Pauleen?" I ask. Luk, from my vision, shrugs.

"Nnf. She's tired too. Not as tired, mind you, but y'know. Also confused why the heck you're not being a stuck up snob."

I close my eyes. "I... I was not that bad, was I?"

"Naaaah. I'm messing with you."

I smile thinly. "Of course."

As my vivosaurs resettle, and Mier retakes his place on the edge of his bed, Luk releases a breath. "Dude... it's so weird seeing you try this hard for something. And it's—it's freaking me out. Like... a lot. But I guess you're doing alright, and, uh, I mean, not completely alright obviously... but you're... well. Wow. Haha. It's so weiiird... ahhh... But I'm... I don't wanna keep getting upset, because that's no fun... so I—I just need to get over that she's won your heart, huh? Ahhh..."

"Aww, it's not that bad, Luk!" Todd. "Rupy's bein' powerful now! Yeaah? He's... He's showing all of us up! Isn't that something? Hah... aaah..." His voice lowers. "I know, though. It is weird. Rupy. Seriously. People like me and Luk, like... we've known about you for so long it's kinda strange to see all this."

Eyes closed, I breathe softly. "Yes... it is a little strange. For me especially. But... But I am happy about this change as well. Even though I-I miss her, and there are so many ancients about, and it is all... rather overwhelming... even so. This... This is a good change."

Quiet. Then...

"We should probably tell her."

"Ohhh, yeah, we should probably tell her."

My eyes open. "To whom are you referring to?"

And then I notice the hands digging through the pockets of my pants. My eyes lock with Luk's hazel and he offers not a word, just a smile, and then when I try to ask him what in the world he is doing he ignores me and I try to pull back when Todd cries, "AHHH, I GOT IT!"

Oh. There it is in his hands, pried out from me. My... Paleopager. And what does he want with that? Booting it on, searching through my admittedly small number of contacts, he glances up at Luk after one or two swipes and grins cheekily. "Found her." And Luk scoots over to him, and it is not all that easy to see them from this angle.

Mier smirks from his corner. Pippy steps up to look at the device, only the other two hold it high enough for him not to see it and he whines a little loudly, then goes bashful and falls silent.

"AHA!" Todd coughs. "Alright alright alriiiiiight..." Clicks the little button that issues a call.

"Todd—" I try but of course he pays me no heed, and neither does Luk for that matter. The silence of the room is suffocating, only broken by the beeps of the dial, until finally, I think whomever this she is will not answer—

"What?" When she does.

I try myself to sit up again, and I peer over at the screen once I manage. "Dinu?" The incredulous face, the sweeping blonde hair, the big dark eyes, the angry pout. My cousin. They call my cousin. Why do they call my cousin? Why Dinu?

Luk yanks it back from me and offers the largest smile he can muster. "Heeeey, Dinu! What's _up_! N-Nice to see you again, yeaaah?" The grin is fracturing. "Uh-Uhhnmmn... So we have an issue and I think we're gonna need your help so you better get your butt over to Nomadistan right about now!"

Silence.

"What in the world are you talking about? Explain yourself before I hang up, you... _dolt_. And what's Rupert doing over there? I saw his face for a moment... Goodness, what's going on?"

I glance over at Mier. A little smirk still straying on his face, he scoots closer and I whisper, "She is... troublesome," and he snorts his approval, eyes rolling.

"Uhhmmm! Dinu, Dinu! No leaving the call, okay? This is super important!" While Luk attempts to convince her, Todd repeatedly nods. "Rupert literally broke his foot and screwed up his leg in the process!"

"WHAT?" she hisses. Quickly Luk tosses the Paleopager at me with this frantic look on his face and I manage to nab it out of the air. Dinu's face pinches as she takes in what must be a tired face. "BREAK YOUR FOOT. SINCE WHEN DID YOU DO ANYTHING THAT VIOLENT."

My face heats. She must realize by now that the two are not lying to gain her attention. "I—ah..." Shaking my head, unsure of what to say, I pull back the blanket and leave the device near where the bandages start. She whistles out a low curse after a small pause. Pulling the Paleopager back toward me, I murmur, "Ancients."

"Mmmm." The scorn on her face is searing. "Since when did _Rupert_ do anything dangerous enough to get himself screwed over by an ancient?" And although she is trapped within the bright little screen... I cannot hold my cousin's stare.

"Since"—I breathe in slowly—"since his..." I need to stop for a moment. "Since his... girlfriend was possessed by one of them."

Sometimes I forget Dinu hides her affection in her despite.

"That's right." When I look over at the screen again, she has lost her ferocious edge. "I forgot. Grandfather and I were, ah... well. The ancients are nuisances and... they're quite out of hand. And I forgot that was happening soon.

She does not apologize but this is as close to one as I am getting. The sharpness returns with a shake of the head. "Well. You obviously need my assistance." Smirk. "Grandfather would understand my disappearance I'm sure."

I wince. "You will not tell him before you go?" Although there is not much one can expect from Dinu.

Her dissent gives me my answer. "Tell me where you are."

"Dinu, at least _tell_ him—"

"THIS CABIN PLACE NEXT TO THE CASTLE," cries Todd, and immediately after Dinu shuts off her device.

Closing my eyes, I cover my face with a hand and place the Paleopager on the bed in front of me. I sigh slowly.

Long morning. Long day.

 **I trust you don't take some of this too seriously, Rupert's funnies in his story are a lot different and a lot harder to convey than Dino's funnies, as Dino goes right at it and Rupert's more the brunt of the jokes xD oh poor child**

 **It can be a little funny though... little bit xD**

 **Oh, so! Anyone who's reading this currently or around now or whatever should be aware that I'm on winter vacation from school so do expect a chapter out every around two days, alright xD This'll be going on until I get to arouuund chapter 19 to 20... so wow, this story will be nearing its middle soon ^^**


	13. Rt: Perception of Strength to Protection

**Mier: alright then now what**

 **Luk: now we wait for Rupert's cousin to crash the party**

 **Todd: but that's a good thing since she's gonna like crash it in style**

 **Luk: what are you talking about**

 **Todd: I'm trying to make it sound cool**

 **Mier: you're not very good at that**

 **Todd: ;w; meanie**

 **Luk: get used to that, Dinu's the queen of all meanies of ever**

 **Mier: ouch**

 **Rupert: -hides a smile behind his palm-**

 **Mier: dude**

 **Rupert: she can be rather... stony**

 **Mier: so basically she's a jerk**

 **Rupert: n-not quite... only sometimes**

 **Mier: sometimes... and that's supposed to make me feel better well then**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 13: Perceptions of Strength to Protection

 _Rupert_

My courage remains unsteady for some few days, so I remain resting upon Mier's generously provided bed until I think I feel recovered enough to attempt to walk.

I am wrong.

Shifting assists me, and I work myself above the covers enough to balance my legs over the side of the bed. My feet—one notoriously swollen and draped in tight bandaging—the other in a fuzzy red sock—dangle above flooring. It is with one large breath and hoping weakly that I press into the earth and a shock of dizziness sends me into the wooden boards below that I land on my knees. My left leg, still damaged enough to digress, spikes a dull throb which continues even after I manage to stand. Although, how I manage to stand after that much work getting off the bed alone is beyond me.

Gyntis has taken to watching over me at this time—perhaps they circulate to keep me from doing something else thoughtlessly—and he does not bother to stifle his snicker as I take tiny steps over the floor. One of my feet slides about in its wayward sock while the other remains rigidly throbbing, like a stubborn thing, behaving as if its purpose was never to walk but instead to stay in place.

Ah, but I digress. Even so, I manage to stand, and that alone is a victory worth a small celebration. Having... never broken a bone before in my entire life... to call the shock overwhelming is an understatement.

When Dina broke her hand I had not a thought of how much it hurt to have that throbbing follow you throughout your daily life. How it is hard to keep track of much anything with the pain in the back of your head. How many times, having broken it not long after we began to form a relationship, did I accidentally take her broken hand and see her try to hide the pain of it being touched?

I was not a... _bad_ lover... was I?

 _Psssh. Oh, goodness, Rupert. You need to_ chill _, man._ Gyntis in the corner, laughing quietly at me. _Like. Seriously. How can you date_ her _and not remember all of the affection she showed? Like... goodness. You have to admit that Dina's emotional levels are staggering, especially how much she leaves out in the open._

 _Mmm..._ I try not to let him see how ingratiating it is for me to hear that. _Yes, perhaps she was..._

 _You do not say 'perhaps' about_ Dina _! Come on!_ He makes an exaggerated if not loud snort.

There is a lull in which I manage to work my way to the wall and rest myself against it. Still standing, at the very least. I have not given up just yet. _She was shy, too. You know this, Gyntis. She was... shy. And quiet. And she did not say everything aloud. She did not intend to tell me everything._

There is a great scoffing huff. _Aaaaalright. You do it your way._ Gyntis must be slightly annoyed. _That doesn't change the fact that she did tell you about the abuse she went through when she was younger—and—as well—abuse! I mean, who wants to talk about that anyways? Rupert, stop being all sullen, it's rather mood-dampening._ Pause. Then he jolts. _Wait! Hey! Stop referring to her that way! She_ was _shy and she_ was _quiet and you_ were _a bad lover! Ulhhhh, what are you, losing hope now?_

 _A-Ahh._ My face flushes. _No! I... I did not even_ realize _I was... no—Gyntis. No._ I put my head in one of my hands, sighing softly. _No... Gyntis, I love her. I..._ love _her. Everyone who has met me knows this... I know this, you know this. I... love her._ Shake of the head. _I will do my best not to speak of her in such a light again. My Dina..._

 _Wow._ Gyntis coughs. _You are... so serious, and so sullen. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I don't know, you just... really are. By goodness. You do relax, don't you?_ I lift my head to catch his gaze, his burning white gaze.

And then I look away. _Well, I just was for some time._

Exasperation. _You broke your foot, Rupert! You kind of have to friggin rest after that, don'cha think?_ Sigh. _Aaaaagh. You're too much for me._

 _My apologies_. He grunts but does not go on. _I like... being around Dina. If that is relaxed._

When I turn back to him, he has shrugged. _Ah, sure._ There is a bark of a laugh. _You say that, Rupert. You say that._ And his eyes turn back to me. _Really, though. How long do you think you can hold out before you collapse like that? I'll give you credit for this last time: it was Tessa who screwed up and fell badly, not exactly you who, like, jumped off her weird or whatever. That was on her. But now that you've rested even some..._ There is a dangerous glint in his eye. _When's the next time something happens that causes you to fall?_ He shakes his pale blue head slowly. _Just a thought._ A thought, he says, with that weight in his gaze.

I swallow. _We shall find out, then, no?_

He tosses his head sidelong. _You keep saying that. Keep saying that until you do something else stupid due to lack of something or another and get yourself in some real messed up situation. You've already broken your foot and twisted your leg and now it's hard to walk. Hah!_ He throws his head back then. _You'd think after that sort of injury, you'd get the idea and stop!_

 _Yes, but... I am already deprived. So there is no use waiting._ With that I ease my way to the door, and I take my exit as carefully as I can manage. Even with my footwork slow and steady, I still catch my skin on hard wooden edges that were not sanded as well as they could have been sanded, or upended nails, or other mindless garb I would not have noticed had I not lost a shoe and misplaced the other.

Strange, the things one notices when without shoes. Imperfections on my toes.

Dina... had no shoes. Yes, she had, ah, callouses after years without them... but she had no shoes. And there was a time as the callouses grew that the ground she walked on must have hurt. And all this time one spends without worrying for such trivial matters, they never experience it, not really. Is that not... the strangest inquisition?

I exert enough energy in my attempt to cross the hallway that I do not notice the shadow slinking up the walls until it is in front of me, and Mier has turned to laugh softly. "Wow, lookit you go." He rolls his eyes. "Nowhere fast. Good for you."

"But I refrained from movement for so long that any at all must be a good sign," I murmur, head tilted toward the ground, toward my throbbing foot.

Silence. "I can carry you again if you'd like." Silence again.

My face heats.

"I-It is of no need." I shake my head. "Do not... worry about such matters. I-I will be fine on my, um, own." Y-Yes, perfectly alright, I just... need to be careful walking. But I am... I-I am being careful. And it only takes some amount of time to go from one hallway to the kitchen area where I hear the other voices flowing... and I have not seen them and it would be nice to get so far as there and _Mier does not need to carry me_ I-I should be fine on my own.

He turns away, giggling quietly. "Alright." There is a little smile on his face. "If you say so, Rupert." And with a final quirk of his lip he passes me, and soon even his presence has disappeared from the corridor. I think... I have grown to like Mier, if but slightly. He is interesting, surely. Where was he going just now, I wonder?

It is no matter. I turn back to my process at hand and continue the careful motions it takes to get me through the rest of this forsaken hallway—and I just want to know why is it so long? Ahh, either way I manage, slow and careful, to reach the little nook where the rest of my vivosaurs and friends lie.

They raise their heads at my approach. Todd giggles. "So how long did it take?"

"It does not concern you," I mutter.

But of course he cannot give up that easily. After all, he is Todd. So with a fluff of his silky dress and squarely staring into my face, he goes, "Yeah it does!" in that squeaky, chipper tone of his.

I close my eyes for a moment, shaking my head. "But of course not."

"Ruuupyyyyyyyyyy!" he cries, "stop bein' a meaaanieeeeeeeee!"

And here I am. A... meanie. "My bad."

A lot of things happen in the next moment. Todd falls backwards from the table in his chair and starts uncontrollably laughing with his face in his hands. Luk slams a fist against the table, which drowns out whatever he tries to say with it. Pauleen looks up and stares at me as if I have been replaced with someone who looks exactly like me yet is not myself in any way otherwise.

In the midst of the confusion, she raises her head to ask loudly, "WHO THE HELL IS THIS GUY?" That silences everyone else nicely. With a toss of her hand, she tries again. "Like... what?! Since when in the world diga-did Rupert even try to say something even _slightly_ humorous? Unless this is all unintentional, but that's besides the friggin point, because HE HAS NOT MANAGED SUCH A FEAT BEFORE NOW." After a pointed glance at Luk, she lifts both fists and slams them into the table, which goes on shivering for a good few seconds.

Todd blinks dumbly. "That was rude to the table."

"Shut up, Todd."

"You can't tell me what to dooo, diga-Pauleen!"

She stiffens, then turns to glare hate in his face. "That's not even how it works, diga-dammit." Then she slams a palm into the table again for good measure. Todd giggles to that, but otherwise it is silent. "Ulhhhhhhgh. What is it with the two of us?"

Smirking, Todd shrugs. "I like to think that in this world..." He lowers his voice, as if about to release a heavy truth. "...some things are destined to never, never ever make sense." Then, a hint of mischief in his gaze, he raises his head to point a finger at me. "LIKE YOU!"

And then he bursts into another round of laughter when my cheeks heat, just like that. Pauleen rolls her eyes at his side. She eyes her own dress, of similar material, and fluffs hers with a huff in her face. She used to keep hair bands to tie up the voluminous puffs of pink hair, but perhaps they broke, or perhaps she lost them, or maybe she gave up, because now it lays a wastrel mass of loud writhing magenta, in tangles and tangles, down to her waist. And the smug look on her face tells me she does not care.

I have that respect for her. While the first emotion she goes to is fuming, she is amiable and resorts well to her anger. I have yet to see her actually inflict harm out of whatever emotion it is she is feeling. There must be... a strength in that. A sassy flick of her gaze, and she eyes back at me. "So you're sitting diga-down or what, Rupy? You might as well." Pause. With the slight hint of a flicker on her face, like that of the tail of a fish slinking through water, the smug grin emerges. "You look friggin tired enough as it is, digadig."

"Thank you for your... kind indulgence, Pauleen." A grimace splinters across her expression, disrupting that smug look of hers, and she covers her face with her hands.

Not until she emerges am I given a reason why. "ULHHGH! STOP IT! IT'S TOO WEIRD, YOUR CASUAL WAY OF SPEAKING THAT STILL SOUNDS SO—SO FORMAL! DIGA-DAMMIT, RUPY!" She nearly slams her hand into the table yet again but Todd yanks it up before that happens and gives her this demeaning stare, and with a weak grin she halts. How Todd manages the look is beyond me.

Luk turns to face me and scoots to the left somewhat on his bench. The others, I note, have taken to those rocking chairs with the hand-stitched pillows, the ones I saw on my first take to this room. I step and immediately wince before letting out a breath and trying again. I... forgot about my injury, standing, hearing their laughter, being... accepted into the jovial mood. However bluntly she puts it, Pauleen is not wrong: I never let go of my stilted position, not even as the barriers between Pauleen and Todd and Dina began to peel away. Not even when the first revealed her crippling shyness, or the second stood up when the rest of Caliosteo thought us frauds...

Only Dina did I dare warm up to. What would she think, did she see me now? Trying so hard... to let go of my past pains... to find a casual closeness to the others she holds dear to her as friends? She is not here to tell me, but I want to think she would feel... happy. Though I suppose that is not exactly a difficult feeling to pinpoint.

"So, uhhhh..." Pauleen's emerald eyes scour the bluenette beside me. "Is he with us? I've got some truths to set free from what happened before my little, uhhh, nap, shall we say, and I'd rather not go blabbing at some stranger. Diga... he looks trustworthy? Rupy, should we kick him out?" She ignores the awkward laugh Luk gives in turn. "I asked Todd, and he diga-doesn't think we should boot him, but you know we can't trust his opinion."

I feel his eyes trace my expression. With a breath, I murmur, "No—um, he is, that is... one of us. He is with us. Luk is... an old friend. And he gets along well with Todd, so I would like to think he would get along well with you too."

"This feels weird," the friend in question giggles. "It's like I'm not even present."

Pauleen makes a questionable face at being referred to in the same group as Todd, but she otherwise is still as amiable as she was prior. Sivan, who I now notice takes refuge underneath the table, bumps against it with a grunt. His fighter loudly asks him what he wants and when the smilo huffs off to his spot on the ground again, she attempts to kick him. But she misses on purpose, waiting long enough to let him duck beforehand.

From behind us, Camri mumbles, _Why yes, I know that feeling rather well._

...Oh dear. _Camri, what is it this time?_ Is he sulking? Why is he sulking? Oh goodness... _Camri_.

 _You hardly take notice when you enter the room! Hardly mention the fact that I was there!_ He scoffs sullenly, and I wish slightly I had continued ignoring his presence. _Rupert, how could you do such a thing? Do you not understand just how important I am to you?_

Somehow the phrasing seems familiar... and it comes to me that as many times as he has used the phrase... just how many different people has he used it on? How many in the room right now? And how many times..? Oh... Camri, what are you?

 _Dearie!_ Mistress as well? _Oh, don't be so harsh on Camri! He's just playing, you know that! He can be rather sweet, yes? Although I understand his differences, he can be silly too!_ Mistress standing up for that scoundrel of a vivosaur... The rest listen in miffed silence as my krona appraises the mapo queen for her words and then goes on to cry at me once more.

Pauleen just rolls her eyes. "Where in the world diga-did you get such... freakishly expressive vivosaurs, Rupy? Like... _what_ in the world! Well I guess they're not Torn so I can't complain." They all know Torn: inflammatory dimetro, speaks his mind at any time he feels it, speaks _only_ his mind, rather... dirty-mouthed. Though I suppose he is not the only one.

"I like Pippy!" As if to reinforce his point, Todd plucks the miniature seismo from the ground and plops him on his lap. "Pippy makes me happy!" And the vivosaur releases a sheen of bright joy from his compliment, twirling in place before curling up. His other vivosaurs express some level of disgust, either at his oozing affection or at not being the one picked up, but for the most part they remain subdued.

So many of them... yes? Pauleen and the few she still has on her. Todd and his three. My... six now, would it be? That is, if Pippy counts. I would like to think so. They can be exhausting, vivosaurs, but they have their moments too. Still, I am by no means as well acquainted with mine as perhaps I should be, and certainly not so strongly as Dina was—er, _is_ —with hers.

Quiet again. Camri takes the moment of silence to crawl into my own lap. A part of me is tempted to hurl him but I decide to ignore him again. At least he does not... drip water onto me. Would that be thoughtful on his part, I suppose?

"Soooo. Um..." Pauleen blushes. "Um, y'see... It's a little complicated." Todd snickers quietly, like it was not at all how she portrays it. But it was, no? We spent however long just trying to find her in the first place. Not even the little brunette himself, her devoted friend, knew where she had gone off to. "But I... aaahhgh..." She claps her hands together. "There aren't a lot of good ways to say thisss... mmmn... So, um... umnn... diga-don't judge me when I diga-do, okay? I-I-I promise it's not as bad as it sounds." My blood chills in my body. Aggravated, my foot begins to throb. Ah...

"So like..." Deep breath. "There's an ancient inside of me."

Silence. Utter silence meets her statement.

Luk is the first to act. "Like... ancient-ancient? Ummm.. real ancient?" He bites at his cheek; I see one of them cave. "That's... that's preeee-tty serious, you know that? Really... really, um... really..." His fingers edge on the desk, unstable.

Mine must look similar.

Todd, ever the dramatic, pulls the cushion he was sitting on out from beneath him and stuffs it in her face.

She grumpily mutters, "Todd, what the hell?" to which she is given a pause.

Oh. He is serious. There is a weak look in his gaze.

When I remember, as I should... that as close as she is to me, Dina is his foster sister. She grew up around this boy for years, and... she is rather far gone today. S-So it is only understandable, how strong his reaction is. What must it feel like, I wonder... knowing her for so long? Does... Does it hurt him _more_ to—No... no, do not think that way. I release a breath slowly.

I have been possessed twice. It is... not an ideal situation.

She roughly tears the pillow out of her face when Todd does not remove it himself. She not unkindly heaps it back upon him; Pippy sneezes. "Ughhhh. I knew that was gonna happen." She pushes her lips together. "But I mean... diga-Dina. So I shouldn't be surprised... diga." She squeezes her hands together. "But that's... that's not like how it is, I-I promise."

She pulls herself apart, slowly shifting. There is a bit of a heat in her green eyes as she lay there thinking, thinking, how does she say this.

"Really, it's not!

No, that does not work. "I mean, I mean... Hhhhf, okay. So... you all remember the chaos when the Nomadii Cup started or whatever, right?" Ah... yes. I lost consciousness after I lost Dina—after Zoazoa took over—and then I awoke to a deserted kingdom, eerily empty. "So umm... Todd, I think a brick hit you? But I diga-didn't get hit and... and uhh, while people started to get the idea to hide away or whatever, um... I wasn't really thinking." Oh. "So I ran. And I ran. And I ran a whole diga-damn lot, digadig.

"It... wasn't all that pleasant... when I came to my senses." She glances shyly at the ground. "Heh... no, no, nothing so bold. I more or less freaked out and, ummm... ah, whatever." Sigh. "I... startedcryingalot..."

We stand witness as she pulls back into herself again. An angry wipe at a stray tear on her dark face, and she bites her lip to keep it from shaking. I... I forgot... how easily she falls apart. I forgot how quickly she gave into her guilt when she broke Dina's hand, how upset she grew when Zongazonga tried to tear our world apart, how... much of a weight she became, when she lost her grip on life.

I wish I stopped forgetting. I... I do not want to lose these pieces of people, these greatly important little things.

She tries a few times at a smile, and eventually it sticks. When it does, and only when it does, she reopens balled fists and peeks back out at us. And... she is gasping for breath, breathing hard, breathing hard, until it grows smooth again. Oh, Pauleen... What is she going through?

"Aah, sorry, sorry..." She swallows and pushes onward. "So uh, it sucked and I screwed around for a couple diga-days and couldn't figure out why the cold hadn't gotten to me when I... when I met this guy." I forgot about how... strong she could be, too. "He was a vivosaur, but he wasn't a vivosaur, right? Half there... half not." Another breath, another breath. "He asked how the heck I was still alive and I told him I was... was a fighter. I diga-don't know.

"So uh... he diga-decided to help me out. Because he knew we were into some diga-deep trouble. He... He like woke up from ancient-sleep or whatever because of... the surge of power that was evoked when... when what happened to diga-Dina, um... when that whole thing let loose."

A weight sinks the mood of the chamber. Her name, uttered, like a spell, changes the entire atmosphere we had held together so well for so long... an atmosphere I for once was able to adjust toward. I... I was smiling, they were laughing, it was... a warm feeling... until her name returned to us.

Because she should be here too, should she not? She... She should be here with us, all of us. Her gentle laugh should flow in and out of conversation, her violet eyes alight with emotion... her tiny, precious smile... the way she nervously and yet happily would join us. The way she shed her fears, her worries, when she would take my hands... and how... how happy she felt.

Ah. She is not here now. Do not... think so heavily. Accept it... Try and accept it. At the very least... I am not the only one who feels her loss as a hole in my chest. I am not... alone. My pride still refuses to acknowledge this although in a way it is refreshing to know that I am not alone, that ever since I met her and widened my horizons I was not alone again.

The mood has gone stagnant. I make an attempt to change that. "So... there, um, there is an ancient inside of you now? Are you feeling alright?" It is a weak attempt but still an attempt nonetheless.

"Diga-Damn." Pauleen acknowledges my weak attempt. "Rupy, that was... At least tell a _story_ about her or something, y'know, rainbows and freaking tefflas and omiases, make someone laugh about her again. You just try to ignore the entire thing? Digadig, you diga-don't diga- _do_ that! My... gosh!" With a loud remark she mutters, "Diga-Did you know I used to have a crush on her..?"

"What?" I regret my speaking the moment the word comes out: jagged, split...

Luk snorts. "Rupy, you have competition."

"I said 'used to', okay!"

With that remark, Todd loudly slams himself onto his chair and stares intently at his old dress-wearing friend. "You had a crush? Whaaaaaat?" And as he is, he has quickly dropped the accusation of ancients.

Her face heats. "Shut up, Todd." Folding her hands in her lap, eyes tilted as to subdue any attempt at looking into hers, she struggles to elaborate. "She's like... you know! She's... weirdly sweet. Like, she's super nervous all the time, diga, and she's always shy, and she's so freaking soft and stuff, and knowing where she came from that's a pretty weird way she turned out but... I respect that! Alright? I respect that!"

"Um. That's not a crush." Todd blinks, smiling awkwardly. "Pauleeeeen, that's just respeeeeeeccct! Like... that's why you used that word!" He pokes at her until he gets his answer.

There is a growl. "OH, SHUT UP, TODD, YOU DIGA-DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" She yanks his pillow out from under him and slaps it across his face. "I BET YOU'VE NEVER EVEN HAD A CRUSH IN YOUR LIFE!"

Silence.

"Stop being right." He pouts. At his lame remark Pauleen snaps something else at him and their pillow goes flying, their voices extrapolating at extreme volume.

By my side, Luk has rested his head on his hand. He is smiling weakly. "Ohhh my goodness." He shakes his head slowly. "Rupert, what even are your friends? I thought I was fine with Todd but then _pinky_ here shows up and... oh my goodness." He lifts up both hands and turns toward me, his hazel eyes twinkling. "They're like... bwooh!" His hands expand like fireworks.

"Mm..." I nod slowly. "Yes. They are... rather..." I gesture simply in their direction, as one of them attempts to hit the other and falls over in their dress.

Luk's gaze draws near them. "Did you ever..?"

I smile weakly. "No, no... That is not how I am. Besides... I was never all that much of a... a fighting soul. I-I know"—my eyes linger to the table—"I know that I was renowned as one of the greatest fossil fighters of... all time, really... But that was not... that was not where..." Feebly I touch my chest, feel my beating heart. "That was not where I felt like I belonged, I guess."

And now here I am with vivosaurs who can hardly stand me... and I hardly even bothered with them until I lost... her. Honestly I hardly bothered with anyone until she was gone, and I did not bother with them prior either. Is that not... a little sad? Hah... perhaps. I just... never knew.

But it helps to keep smiling. I mean... sometimes they hurt, but like a habit, just working the emotion at all assists with any sense of peace I still foster inside of me. When I think about it, I start to ache all over again... and I start to grow lost and aimless, as if I might think recklessly again, make another poor choice, try... so hard to find her. Have I not already made two or three in the expanse of my loss?

Oh, dear. Gyntis was right: when will it happen next? How peculiar, to feel powerless against one's own will.

"Ehh—Ehh, dude, uhh..." I regain focus on my friend. "Ah—okay, okay. You like... spaced out there for a second. It was... kinda weird, heh." The small grin on his face twists. "Thinkin' bout Diiiina?"

My face heats. "Luk—"

"I bet you weeerrree—"

"Luk, that is of no matter to—"

But of course only time would stall enough until the other two heard us. Todd, _of course_ , perks first: "What kinda thoughts now? Oooooh, Din-Din thoughts!" I close my eyes for a moment and shake my head as Pauleen snickers quietly.

Luk whispers, leaning in, "Dirty thoughts?"

" _Luk_ , of course n—"

"RUPY! OH GOODNESS! HOW NNNNAUGHTY OF YOU! AND WITH DINA, NONETHE _LESS_! OH, RUPY, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

I choose to remain silent until the heat of his excitement burns out of him. There are only so many ways to expel him from his moods. Besides... I do not mind their rejuvenation; the mood was sullen enough prior. And I was no assistance to it... ah, they so easily word their ways to laughter but it seems all of my attempts so far have merely been unintentional. Maybe if I keep trying... Oh, how strange it is, to wish to be a _part_ of something...

Whence he recovers, Pauleen gently reintroduces my question with her answer. "So uh, what you were saying earlier, umm... Yeah?" She shrugs. "I'm okay? At least, diga, if I'm not somehow, I diga-don't feel it right now? I... I diga-don't know. I get that the whole ancients thing, especially the possession thing, is a little spooky, but... well. I'm not... too worried, I guess. Besides, diga-didn't you guys hear about what happened at Vivosaur Island a few months ago?"

"And how did you learn of this?" I mumble, as no, I did not know... Is that not where Pippy sourced from, where his original fighter was when they were separated and possibly... ah, irrefutably so, depending on how strong his fighter was? The seismo perks up from the floor, where he must have fallen after the little scuffle. He darts over toward me and squeezes into the space between Luk and myself, dancing slightly in place.

"Y'know. That's where I came from." Oh. "Yeah, that's where the digadig tribe is. Y'know, why I talk like... y'know." Small smile. "Anyways, one of my friends told me about it—you remember Jkonna's visit that one time? With my grandpa. The whole mask thing... y'know." Cough. "So, uh, diga, um, apparently not so long ago some guy found the actual fossil for this one ancient—I think his name was Frigi or something—but anyways he _revived_ him and _used_ him in battle, almost wiped everyone off the map. So then, this one guy... I diga-don't remember their name but this one other guy found the one for some other ancient, I diga-don't remember that name, and they like... beat each other up, messed up Frigi enough to take back the island or something?"

There is a soft gasp beside me. _Pippy?_ I look over to him, and he is fighting little tears in his eyes. Oh, Pippy...

 _Yes, um... my old lads and lassies, um... My memories are a little skewed even still, I'm a little shaken I guess but, but I must say that... that I was there when that happened! And... And Dino actually was in possession of the both of them, Thomas_ and _Iggy, the last I saw of him!_

Todd covers his mouth, though there is still a laugh in his thoughts as he contacts my seismo. _Alright. Thomas and Iggy._ Snort. _Clllllassic names._

 _Only the best for our Dino, huh?_ Luk rolls his eyes.

There is more to Dino, I know... but I think Pippy is reluctant to share, or he is simply afraid to. There is a feeling that comes off of him, his Dino, whenever he thinks of him and thinks of me, not something exactly of similarity as he first suggested but something else... something worrisome. But he refuses to speak and I refuse to force him to, so he is silent for now. Not that anyone minds, really.

Oh, Pippy... what torture have you been through, so much as to break the mold of your own mind, so much so that while memories pop in from time to time you are too afraid to sift through much more? I... oh, I almost regret it that reluctant moment I try it but gently I push Camri aside and pluck the little seismo, and then I hold him myself.

He is shaking. Oh, Pippy, he is shaking...

"Yeah, so, um," Pauleen finishes lamely, "if we find Oni's skull, then we can revive him into, like, a super-powered medal or something... and with that it'll be that much easier to harness him and stuff."

As reassuring as that sounds, the mood has gone sullen again, and while their company is nice I also would rather avoid another of their albeit immature clashes... I suppose I have drained what little energy I had regained... And Pippy, oh, Pippy, he shakes so. When I recall... "Mier left here to go off somewhere else, did he not? I wonder... where he went... He was with you, I presume, until then?" Someone nods. "Then, well... would it be unwise to go... check upon him?"

"I mean..." Luk whistles lowly. "You don't exactly go and _check_ on the owner of the house. He's basically free to do whatever he feels anyways, so I mean..." But he shrugs anyways, weakly, reluctantly. "Probably wouldn't mind though... What is it with the both of you?"

Ah... I look away. "He is... I like being around him. He is—He is _not_ a replacement for who I have lost... but I like being around him. He is... I think he is kind. Perhaps not overflowing"—like a certain girl I miss dearly—"but even so. I like him." If but slightly. And... when the ancients all came crashing down and everything went so quickly and the world was practically falling apart around us... he let me trust him... and, truly, he may have saved us. Saved me, if anyways, for I may have tried something stupid yet again had I been there much longer on my own with but vivosaurs and a super-powered girl with an ancient inside of her. An ancient that now _she_ trusts. But I—I suppose as long as it is alright... and we could look for that skull and revive it, perhaps...

"Wait, but..." Luk's face pinches. He bites at his lip. "But like... besides just checking on him, your leg is not in the best shape as it could be." And I realize, as true as that is, there is a hint of something in his voice... Is he trying to stall me? To... To keep me from leaving? Oh. Of course. "You shouldn't go running around like a... like a _crazy person_ all the time."

"I... I am not running. I mean this. I am... careful." I understand that he may miss me but I think he is better-suited for Pauleen and Todd as it is... and I am not so capable of being around them much longer... here I am, wilting. "And... it should not be so long." Can I not just leave? Though "just leaving" could cause worry, especially after my last exhibition. "I will still be in this house..."

Luk is eying me as well... I try to loosen any barriers so he can see what I have and let me go soon. All... All I want is to get out of this chamber, just for now, I just... as—as nice as you all are, it is... different for me, and still difficult to adjust toward, and I just want to take some time away.

Finally he abides. With a small nod of my head I take my leave.

Watching me go, Pauleen voices, a little louder: "Hey uh... Digadig, I'll be careful with the stuff in my skull. I mean it! We know what happened with Zongy and what happened with the other diga-dude... I know what you mean. I'll be careful."

I offer her a quiet thank you, and then I am out. Pippy, catching me, follows quickly, and soon after is Mistress, and then Sunny. Why they follow... ah, well... because they want to, yes? Because they want to. But Camri stays—I think he found interest in some other female vivosaur in the room—and Tessa still lies back there, somewhere. I do not blame her, after all that happened, to be exhausted at any length.

They are all quiet, and they go slowly beside me even with my progress as crippled as it is. Even as minutes inch past my rate of speed and the minutes gather and I finally reach the bedchamber and Mier is not there but—oh he must be in that one upstairs room, and I go after for the stairs and I go up the stairs slowly and I trip a little over one and I think as well as the bandages work I need something a little more stable. And through another chamber. And to the one with the window.

With all of the effort it takes to merely move, I hardly notice the hum of power and I am unsure when I finally feel it how long it has been there... but there it is, in my head again. A lingering light across the wood panels, the scrape of _something_ atop it, the strokes of something else, the immense strain in my head... but as my footsteps and the others become more apparent the power seems to all but drain from us, and then we reach the little round chamber with the big windows on one end.

Sunny mutters something about being careful, her head low. Pippy tries to console her and she snaps back, but then she apologizes weakly.

The lingering light reveals to be the sunset outside, and the scraping is the motions he makes as he turns, and the stroking is that of an old, splattered paint brush along the walls.

I whisper something akin to a gasp as I turn back and catch sight of a painted ceiling with stakes coming out not unlike a compass, only overlapping and overlapping, dripping into golden, gilded walls, only toward the bottom and nearing the top in some areas there is something being painted over these, what appears to be a flaky white—ah, snow. How did I not notice this my first few times into the room?

"You _do_ paint."

He hears me and turns from where he was in a nook, a ladder boosting him up a few inches. When he turns, the white paint on his brush flicks off onto the floor and lands in a small puddle of splats there. But I see now there are multiple little stains like this, and this will not be the last time, now will it?

A twist of a grin traces his lips. "Yes. I do paint. Like the thing on the ceiling in the bedchamber, the stars you saw." He pauses, musing. "I did that one awhile ago... It was nice because it took a lot of time to do, so it kept me thinking. I'd have to go outside and look at the stars just above that part of the cabin... and then I'd have to go inside and paint it exactly how I remembered. Ahhh..." Somehow, while exhausted, the faint sheen of joy coats him. "It was so hard, and it took forever, so many moving back and forth... but it was nice too."

"Really," I murmur. I did not realize how intently I watched him until Mistress bumps my leg with a giggle. Mier glimpses over, a bit of mirth in his gaze. My head tilts downward. "I have not... done much else with my life outside of fossil fighting. Some people... it is trilling. I had a talent for it but... but I never really loved it." No, it leaves a dull ache in my heart even thinking of it, yet it took someone so sweet and so gentle and so meaningful as Dina to pull me out of it. "One would think I would have realized sooner how much I disliked it..." No matter.

"Hmmhmmm..." The golden eyes stray for above. "I have like fifty bajillion paintbrushes if you wanna try."

"Only that many?" He glances back toward me and nods, smiling slightly. "I thought you would have more."

He snorts. "Yeah. Well." Shrug. "I used to have more, but then I... I... uhhhhm... gaaaah, don't make me think on the spot like this, then I don't have anything funny to saaay..."

He perks when I fight at the little grin on my face. And he moves over, and he gestures at a palette liberally dripping with paint, it is so full, like a waterfall of color out of his hand, and then I join him and try for myself.

At first all I manage is to land a streak of orange across his face, to which he puts down his palette and applauds for quietly. He doesn't suggest me to try much anything, just opens up the side of the wall and allows me to do as I see fit so... so I do as I see fit. The orange I layer beneath a yellow—although the yellow on the palette mixed with his green some time ago, so how actually yellow it is is questionable at best—and I try to lift the color by mixing a bit of it with red, only to end with myself a brownish... hunk of sun.

"My bad," I whisper.

"Eh." Mier plops a full brush of orange to the side of it. "Make it an asteroid. Suns are boring anyways." So I use the rest of the red on my brush to add to it a tail, like shooting stars in the sky, and his laugh is quiet. "Yeah, sure, like that."

I manage those large, gloppy stars one sees children making with their crayons and I feel a mite bit _silly_ for the attempt, but Mier does not judge, merely goes on with whatever it is he makes. I try at a rainbow but remember too late the state of the yellow so I attempt to form it into a tail of sorts, then mold it to a brownish body, then turn the asteroid into a head. Pippy is pleased but mentions I botched his purple underbelly, so I have to go over that part.

Mistress forms herself beneath and beside him, and I plant a little wet Sunny atop—in her sickly greenish state. She giggles at this. _Is this art, Sunny?_ and then she bursts out laughing, _Yes, yes, sure_. And it feels... good.

Mier talks softly between strokes. He has discarded the snowy wonderland he worked at prior to my approach and has carefully weaned his colors to resemble a pale tone not unlike the color of skin. And he is working with that now, and I stop and watch him sometimes, the wonder beneath his brush. "Your eyes reaaaally lit up when you saw this. Hahahh... I never thought someone all refined like you would be so... childish. I don't mean immature and... loud and stuff. I mean like... hopeful, I guess, pure."

Pure..?

"But I mean I like it. It's... funny. I think you're kinda funny." He rolls his eyes, smiling at himself. Adds, carefully, golden-yellow irises, works at the pupils. "You know... Maybe you've seen that by now, but as much as I try to push the comfort zones of everyone around me, at the same time I'm judging my own and how I'd fit in back.

"Isn't that weird? I only like being around the people who I must unnerve the most. Maybe that's a backwards way of looking at things, but... I don't know. I like it that way. Helps narrow out the snobs too... hehh..."

We are quiet then for some time. I offer the brush to Sunny, who paws it in her mouth and attempts to paint a flower on one of the side walls and then _she_ realizes how awful the state of the yellow is and her flower comes out hilariously disastrous. "Yes. I... I am quiet. You know this... quiet and subdued, really. It... I need people who actively try to let me into them... yet at the same time I cannot be forced. And... I still cannot understand why you find me so... humorous."

"Mmm." He smiles to that. "And maybe that's why I find you so... _humorous_."

Even with the limited space on the ladder, he is careful not to bump into me.

Funny how someone who craves physical contact is reluctant to go near anyone else, and it is such a strain upon them to try at all. So it takes me time, lots of time, breathing deeply, trying to convince myself this is not as hard as it feels... and I am careful with timing as well, when he is not in the midst of his painting, when I brush by him.

I like... physical contact. And I like Mier. And I... want him to know that I enjoy being around him. Oh... never have I had such a... friend. I mean—Dina is a friend, a very close friend, and more, but... she is different as well. And... I do not merely like her, no, I... I _love_ her. Mier does remind me of her, in little ways, but not in many, and I like Mier for Mier as well. He is... nice to be around. To me.

When I finally manage, just lightly, just a small brushing against him, he turns his head back and makes this pained laugh. "Wow. Just... _wow_." He stays like that for a moment. "Dang it, you're hilarious." Shakes his head slowly, and then he just stays like that for a little longer until he turns to the painting again, and with a few other touches it is finished. Quiet, then. "So... do you like it?"

I turn and realize—oh. That is me... looking back at myself.

When I turn away, cheeks hot, he laughs again. "You're too easy to embarrass. Aaaah..."

"It is nice," I whisper. "It is... very nice."

He painted me with a smile. A little smile at that... but a smile nonetheless. And I... I like that.

We stay quiet for a little longer, and then I tell him, "Pauleen has an ancient living inside of her—only... unlike Dina, and, um, unlike myself when I was possessed"—his eyebrow raises at that—"yes, I was... possessed. Twice. But that is no matter, they are gone now. Either way, she has one inside of her and somehow they have come to a mutual agreement... yet I cannot help but worry for her. Ancients are... frightening creatures. And powerful. And... sometimes they take as they see fit and I think other times they do not realize what damage they cause...

My heart hurts... when I think of it that way. But he has been around for longer than us and he knows more than us, so I ask him, "Mier... what do you think of that?"

His eyes hurt to look at for one long moment, so I lose glimpse of him and catch sight of those earrings of his again—the black and the gold in one, a hoop in the other. The gold one that looks just like a head...

"I think she should be careful, but it should be fine."

I stay quiet until I can manage to look into his eyes again. "Thank you. I... trust you, Mier."

He nods slowly. "Yeah." And again he does not elaborate, merely turns back to the painting. He adds a bit of a pink to my cheeks and my lips, and he writes tiny in the corner my name. "Yeah..."

Somehow there is a sadness weighting to him... and it... makes me feel a little sad too.

"Dinu should be coming sometime soon. I think... you might like her. She can be snappish but she is like that at all times. It can... take some getting used to. But you might like her."

My attempt to alter the conversation does not work. Mier is still silent, and Mier is still sad.

I find myself wishing he was not sad. The weight of it ripples upon me and somehow—somehow it... it hurts. Like ripping-one's-heart-out-of-their-own-chest hurts.

And it makes me sad.

He turns slowly.

"Rupert... uh." He sounds so... unsure of himself, and he holds his expression still. "Thanks. I trust you, I want you to know that... no matter what the heck happens next. Just, um..." His eyes dart away from mine, as if in hiding. "Be careful who you trust, alright?"

He slowly, reluctantly, carefully places a hand on my shoulder. But a moment.

The fierce, overpowering flow of strength clenches him, only this struggles with another motion, another I have begun to recognize as... protection.

And that is that. I watch as he turns back to the painting and adds little highlights in my silvery white hair, adjusts it down only just past my chin, carefully adds form to the heart-shaped face, though I thought he had already finished as it was.

"Um..." He makes no note of me. "Mier, I..." Still quiet. I try to empower my beating heart to not beat so... painfully hard. "I like you... how you are. I know—I see—that there are things about you that you are reluctant to say... that there is something a little, um, strange about you... and I accept that."

"Mmmmmh. People say that when they don't know what they're up against." Pause. "And then they break. You know that, don't you?"

I lose focus again. "Yes, but... but I mean this." I close my eyes. "Please understand when I say that I have gone through... much more than it appears. And I know this... world is not always kind. And I accept that." And I want to... I want to be your friend.

"Mm." He is quiet after that.

I think the weight lifts a little, though.

 **Haha... that got a little heavy toward the end... Little bit... try not to think too much about it? XD Ahh... Iwonder if anyone else likes Mier a lot xD Oh help, I'm getting really really attached to Mier, hahahaha... and I'm happy for Rupy since he really hasn't had many friends in his life xD**


	14. Rt: Dinu Makes Bad Choices

**Todd: -casually struts into the chamber with all the paintings on the walls- ruuupyyy— -sees him working on something- … -sneaks up by him-**

 **Rupert: -hasn't noticed-**

 **Todd: OH MY GOSH YOU'RE PAINTING? SINCE WHEN DID YOU PAINT**

 **Rupert: gAH! -turns around rapidly and glares at Todd- since now**

 **Todd: oh... -stares at the painting- you're not very good at i—**

 **Rupert: yes well I have only just started and I still have much to learn if I ever wish to improve**

 **Todd: but li—**

 **Rupert: and I will require all of the practice I can get if I ever wish to truly paint well which takes time, time which would require my painting instead of blathering with you**

 **Todd: … ouch**

 **Rupert: ah— -blushes- sorry**

 **Todd: nah it's fine, that was a pretty sick burn though**

 **Rupert: ...thank you?**

 **Todd: what can I say except you're welcome**

 **Rupert: -sighs-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 14: Dinu Makes Bad Choices

 _Rupert_

It takes nearly another day for her to arrive, but when she does, there is not a soul in this cabin who does not know of it the moment it occurs. First off the door is slammed open, to which it butts loudly against the wall with a sour, breaking squeak. Then not moments after the door is slammed shut, emitting a similarly weak cry. Finally feet go off stomping in the first direction they pick—left or right, left or right—and she must have chosen right because soon after there is a monsoon of yelling from the area Luk and the others tend to stray about.

Mier sits silently beside me. I have returned to the bed... my foot still throbs from my recent expedition, but it is worth the pain this time; I did need the time to relieve myself of this chamber. In our new quiet blanket of loudness, I turn to the pinkette and recall to ask him, "If this is your chamber, then why did you allow me to sleep here instead of in one of the guest ones?" He must have quite a few extra rooms if not mattresses to fit everyone seamlessly enough.

"Yeah, well..." He is also quiet, but still a commanding quiet that he manages well beneath the din of all of those voices. "The rooms are out past that hallway or up the stairs, and besides then you're sharing a room with somebody, with all of your friends bunking here, and... I dunno. It seemed like the right choice I guess?" Pause. "Oh wait. Also there's the fact that I had to put you down somewhere to set your foot and this was the closest bed. So you know."

"Oh." Then we are quiet again.

After a moment he laughs softly. "You weren't lying, Rupert... oh, no." Shakes his head. "Your cousin is something else. She's like... a vengeful spirit, or something, like she has something against everyone in the entire actual world. Hundreds... of people." As if the thought of it is too heavy for him, Mier rests his head in his hands. There is an exasperated smile toying at his lips.

Quiet again. I dare no higher than a whisper. "She prefers low to high expectations. She dislikes... putting hope into things. It can be risky to put hope into others when one remembers that people are... flawed."

He shrugs. Somehow or another, he heard me. "I guess that's one way to look at it... though I must say it's the freaking depressing one. Geeesh."

"My apologies," I venture again, "if she breaks anything." She is also... not much one to clean after herself. She sees no problem with having flaws so long as she owns up to them.

"Aaah. It'll give me something to do." When I eye him curiously, Mier goes on, waving a hand. "Don't forget now, I used to live in this cabin all on my lonesome for years. Giving me something to do is about the best anyone can do for me. Y'know, after having not all that much of a purpose for however long... it's good to feel needed. Right? Good to know you've got something going for you."

My gaze streaks the ground, and I smile softly. "Yes... it does feel good." Perhaps... there is more than one reason for purpose... and that I am beginning to understand... but even so it is nice. Nice to have someone who... wants to be around you, who appreciates... who you are.

I know how it feels to grow up in isolation. It does... bad things to one's esteem. And it is lonely, truly lonely. And I wonder then how Mier has lived his life up until now... why, so far as we know, he never left his chamber and broke his spell of solitude. Maybe it felt... safer... in his head, to not let himself out into such an unknown. I could... understand that. It can be scary... to open up to someone else, to reveal the most vulnerable parts of you... people tend not to wish to put themselves out like that. It is... _scary_.

Either way, the cacophony continues for another good few moments and then there is stomping up the other side of the hallway, each step edging closer and closer to where we lie. Suddenly nervous, I scoot back into the bed and fold my legs carefully crisscrossed in front of me. The bandages are beginning to wear... Thankfully if naught else my leg is healing nicely, and what once felt like a stone to my side when I stood has dulled to a nice small throb that I can easily ignore when needed.

Finally this opening slams and the reddest face I have ever laid eyes on streaks toward me. She has gone pinched in places and is still thawing in others and oh her hateful, hateful gold eyes. One wicked swipe of a glance at Mier and she goes back to me.

Firstly she goes, "You have no idea how awful it is out there."

I glance up at her. "It is cold outside. Rather. And... was there a blizzard?"

"That's beside the point." She shrugs off my inquisition and situates herself in between myself and Mier. The latter gives her this annoyed, condescending stare, but she turns to me and situates her back to the pinkette, who gets up and goes to my other side with a disgusted grunt.

"That what happened?" As I try another attempt at sating her and Mier leans over the edge of the bed, he goes on to glare back at Dinu, but still my cousin offers only her undivided attention to me. The longer she stays in the cabin the more her face tones back toward its natural pale cheeks and her frozen nose melts toward a less... swollen look, but also the longer she stays in the cabin the further irritated those eyes of hers get.

She huffs. "What happened is that the entire castle is practically empty, there's those creepy ancients everywhere, and _what_ is wrong with your _Dina_? My... _gosh._ " Catching my weak hopeful glance she scoffs. "Yeah, I ran into the thing on my way here. I must say she's gotten a lot less... ahh, pushover-y. But that's just... weird. And annoying."

"I thought you were annoyed when she was 'pushover-y'."

"I was!" she cries. "You do not get me wrong here, Rupert! I _was_! But it's like... it's like... like..." She angrily clenches the air about us. Then, catching eye of the pillows on the bed, she yanks one and tosses it at the other wall, where it resounds a soft _pffunk_. "She's not being normal! Uhhhg..! I hate lies more than I hate the truth. Lies are... annoying." It is mildly amusing how she says this now and yet didn't tell our grandfather where she was going, just took off in front of his eyes.

There is a pause in which she puffs her cheeks and blows air on her cracked hands. "Don't look at me like that." She tilts her head. "You're thinking about _Nigel_ , aren't you? Ahhhhg. I didn't tell him, no I didn't, but I at least have a reason."

"Is there not a reason why Dina is acting—"

Another scoff. It effectively cuts me off. "Stop that! _Okay_? That's something else! Hhhhg..." Then, blankly staring at me, she says it again. "That's... something else." And she drops her gaze.

Regaining composition. Hands folded in her lap in front of her, head shrouded by a veil of her thin blonde hair, eyes downturned, breaths slowly, slowly deepening and expanding as she thinks about what she is doing. Was it not Nigel who taught her that? Oh, Dinu.

In her silence, Mier awakens. He has pushed himself close to me—though still there remains a small gap between us—and he is watching my cousin a little warily. "She looks tired. Well, well, never mind, duh." Shakes his head slowly. "Been a long day, uh?"

"Heh... Yes, it has." I nod. "I cannot blame her, even so. Ancients are... tiring. And... worrisome, yes? They can cause all sorts of damage... physically, mentally... I am sure there are other barriers I was unaware of. But they... hurt. They hurt... to be around, and to be controlled by. They are... so... overpowering."

"Yeah." He does that little quirk where he fuses so much into the word. The emotion in his eyes—the one I started to look to as protection—gleams strongly here... and he watches me carefully. He rests one arm behind me, by my side. Nearby, but not so enforced as to ensnare me. And I... I thank him for that.

Dinu manages to look up again, distracting herself with the pinkette this time. "Geez..." She tousles her head. "What is it with the two of you? Luk was right... it's _weird_. Honestly, Rupert, since when have you ever let someone befriend you?"

"I—" Before I can stop it, my face heats. "Can I not have more than a handful of people I care about? I-I know this is strange, it is already strange enough for me, but... so what if I was able to—to connect with someone? That is... alright, is it not?" She throws me this look that tells me "it is just weird" and glances over to Mier. Her expression curdles.

"Stop looking at me like that. You're making me feel violated."

Mier giggles quietly.

"No—seriously—ugggh—Rupert, why is he so..." There her face crumples. "How did _you_ become friends with _this guy_?" She scoffs yet again. "I can't... I can't understand..." And there she lays, her disgust think in her tone, her hand on her forehead as she glares back at Mier.

Quiet again. Mier proffers, "Oh, maybe it's because everyone's used to thinking they know you. Right? Because of the whole famous thing. So after the years of 'seeing' you they translate that to 'knowing who you are' while misinformed that actually they don't. And after seeing you so alone for so long... it's weird, your change. They probably reacted with shock on the whole Dina thingy too."

I sigh. "Oh, this life of mine..." How... _violating_ it feels when people you hardly know assume who you are. Mier is probably right. Even so, Dinu knew me, ah, better than any fanatic or foe, at least I liked to think so. It must be weird, though, for her to see my change.

"Yeah, well." Dinu pops up again, an arsenal of vengeance reveling. "I was surprised as the next person when he fell in love, but at the very least it was with the little thin sickly girl who kind of resembled him. Also, it's easy enough for some people to pretend he took up to her out of pity." Oh. Well. Well I did _not_ do that. "Don't give me that look. It lets the nonbelievers think they understand," to which she adds " _idiots_ " under her breath, to them or to us... most likely both.

She goes on to point a finger at Mier. "And then THIS GUY! Alright. Alright." She backs off, only to lash in the air at him a moment later. "AT LEAST THE GIRL WAS A SQUEAKY LITTLE PUSHOVER! YOU GET ON MY NERVES!" Before she has the chance to leave a mark, Mier snatches her hands. There is... boredom in his gaze. Amused boredom.

"You told me Dina _got on your nerves_ too, Dinu, please do not forget," I remind nobody as I am the only one who even hears myself.

As much authority as my voice provides, there are simply some people who bypass it. Unfortunately, Dinu is one of those people. And Dinu is... stubborn to her grave. Ahh... How do I go on with this... Here I am, watching as my blonde cousin shoves herself at my friend, and my friend, while overpowering, obviously should not have to be stuck here for so much longer... Oh, if only she would relent from time to time...

So I step gently and try to take Dinu by her hand as obviously she will not listen to me. The touch causes her to jolt and she swings her fist at me then, too, but Mier still has it clasped so he manages not to allow her attempt. She growls at this and then glares at me again and then she collapses into herself and sighs, slowly, and she sits down on the wooden floor. It creaks after her. Mier and I kind of stare at her, but she makes no indication of moving again so I follow after her. Mier snorts and follows after me.

She lets out one long, long breath. Her hands have clasped together tightly. "I swear... first you lose Dina... and next Pauleen's confessing all over about the freaking _ancient_ in her head, and... you're not who I remember you were. But I guess that's both of our faults, mm... Me for assuming, but—but it's your fault too." She scowls. "For... changing."

She spits it like it is a sin.

"Just... I need to adjust. In a lot of ways. Don't you go expecting _me_ to change, though." Resolve hardens along her face, tightening her cheeks, sharpening her lips, darkening her gaze. "I'm... not gonna do that." Dark eyes lash at Mier again. "And stop looking at me so weirdly! You're so... violating! Ugh, I hate it! Rupert"—she rakes her gaze across me—"if you're going to make more friends, at least make good ones." Oh, Dinu...

Her shell is hard and tight and taut around her, and there is no entrance inside of it. She has been so hard for so long her shell _is_ her... and there are times when it appears that by ascending hardness she has left behind dignity, morale, sympathy. And then it spikes in little moments, in little ways that otherwise come out as harsh.

We stay like that for a moment. And then I lean close to her—though I still leave a berth to outright touching her again—and I whisper, "I missed you... Dinu."

"Rrrrrgh..." Her lips twist. "I know." There it is, plainly in her despite, there is her mutual agreement. "Just... nnnh, stop that." She scoots back some; she never liked being touched either. "Well, uh. I'm... here, I guess. Now what? Dina's literally out and about, like, actually _running around the place_ and was there not an ancient inside of her... well. She wouldn't be in the best condition, shall we say. I wonder at how many people she's tried to hurt by now..."

"It is not quite Dina, though. It is... I mean, it is... but it is not her. She is... in pain. Somewhere. And—And I have not seen Torn or Trikko or any of the others since she went missing either..." Well, I did see Trikko the once, but his definite disappearance is what irks me.

Dinu closes her eyes. "I'm talking about plans of action, not what's going on, I... ahhh, whatever. It's impossible to say _anything_ without you thinking of her."

Mier watches our words bat back to back, his lip twitching. But he is silent for now... so I guess he does not have much to offer to our conversation, not yet at least.

With our silence, Dinu sits up straighter. She expands as much as she can manage in her thick beige coat, and she loudly pulls up her booted feet on the floorboards. "That's as much as I thought. S'why I was yelling earlier... you idiots. Hhg. Well—Well anyways, there's right now and that's good enough I suppose. So... so here's my idea after evaluating at our predicament: we go find more ancients and get possessed by them and kill Dina with them and then get them out of us, however that works."

I sit up so fast I bump my head on the side of the bed. "Aahh—Dinu—" But the blind pain has me unable to speak and my head collapses in my hands as I groan softly. "Dinu..." Even I hear the whimper in my tone and I wince at this, and I try again, taking in breaths slowly. "Dinu, no. No, that is a horrible idea." That is all: it is an absolute abomination, idiocy only at its finest.

"Well obviously Dina's already lost her mind, so—"

"We..." I cough softly. "We do not know that. Pauleen... has not lost her mind, now has she?" There. _There_. There is proof enough. "And we all know I had two enter me and I never lost my mind either." Well that is questionable, I may have somewhat at times, but... but here I still am today.

When I lift my head, Mier's eyes flash dangerously and he puts his arm beside me again, just carefully so, and Dinu has a glint of fight in hers. "We need to do something. Pauleen mentioned it earlier—they're everywhere now, ancients. And it's... because of that... that _surge_. And Dina's the one who started it all because of the thing inside of her taking over and for as long as that thing leeches on her we're in danger. Danger..." She loses eye contact with me after Mier ceases but quickly flicks them back, holds them tightly.

"Kill her," I whisper, my voice breaking as I do, "and in the process allow myself to become a vessel for someone else to make home. I... I do not want to do that again, Dinu. It is... dangerous. I-I know—I know apparently our friend Pauleen can handle it, but... that is another matter."

She cries loudly, just sounds, wordless sounds. "Rupert..! We're in such a bad situation we're literally living in someone else's house trying to figure out how to get out of here and take our lives back, our _everything_ back!

And then she goes into herself and she yells, "Why can't you give up that stupid girl already!"

Poor Mier is all but forgotten.

"Di-Dinu..." Oh, no... oh no... oh no... "Dinu, I..." Do not, do not... Rupert... "Dinu, if... if we are to retrieve whatever it is you consider _your_ everything back... first you suggest we kill... m-mine." Oh... dear, the tears fall anyways. I hastily wipe them with the side of my hand but she must see them, they must all see them.

Her voice lowers but not her intensity. "We have to do something, don't we? It'd be easier that way."

"Easier," I hiss, "easier for us to simply kill her than... than..." Than what? This is what she is telling me, is she not? The ancients are here now and it seems every step outside only has us venture into the maw of another, and here I am... unable to let go anyways. Unable to let go of my love, and my love for her. Because while it would be _easier_ to simply remove her from my life... while maybe there would be much less pain in relinquishing now... but...

I... hate it. I hate it.

When I regain enough composition I whisper, "There must be another way. It probably is a-a _harder_ way, much more tedious, more time-consuming... more painful. But there must be another... I-I can _not_ allow you to... just kill her." My Dina.

She seethes quietly, and she lowers her voice even more and she whispers back, "She's just one girl, Rupert. My... _gosh._ She's just one single freaking _girl._ Everything's going to crap and she's just one little freaking stupid pushover terrified nervous weak useless _girl_!"

"She is not," I whisper, weakly, and as hard as I try I cannot stop these bloody tears, "she is much more than one girl." Maybe to Dinu... she is one girl. And one girl does not amount to everything else. But... she _is_ everything, and she _is_ everything else... and I hate this but here it is, and I refuse to take the easy path if it means she dies.

A voice coils into my head and asks me, slyly, were I in Dinu's position if I would go just as quickly to defeat like she did, if I would resort that fast had the one at risk not been someone I knew very well, someone I hardly remembered existing at times in the first place.

But that is not how it came out, is it? I... I will not let them hurt her. Not... anyone. Not as much as I can bear to stop them. So it is as I face the ground, my cheeks streaked with tears, that my cousin huffs and gets up and offers some snide remark about searching for ancients herself and she leaves, slamming one door, stomping down the hall, slamming another.

My heart throbs. Before I know it I have to cover my face and try not to be so... loud. I never knew tears could well up so thickly in one's throat and make it so hard to... breathe... without release. How much it hurts... how much it hurts...

I rub at my cheeks and pull back my hands when I remember I am not the only one left in the chamber. My gaze streaks over Mier, watching so delicately, so quietly, without a word, and my heart tugs and I think I feel... shame. "F-Forgive me." I struggle to get up and nearly fall again, the pain in my foot returning wholesomely with my next step that I struggle to sit on the bed and stay there.

How pathetic must I look now?

With a consoling murmur, he gets up after me and sits next to me again. Says nothing, offers nothing but his presence and his arm draped just by me but not close enough to touch, not quite. Not until I lean against him just slightly, and then he is close enough to.

It takes some time. I stay there quietly, and he is quiet next to me, and I finally release a breath and I whisper, "It hurts a lot sometimes."

His pain is mirrored in his eyes. "Yeah." A soft sigh. "Yeah, it sucks." He closes his eyes, humming quietly to himself. "But you didn't wanna kill her, uh? So you said no... So that's good. I think."

"You must know very well by now that I trust your opinion."

He offers a soft laugh but nothing else. That is fine.

I sigh. "We should go find her. She was frigid enough to the touch when she first came here... and now, ah, searching for ancients of all things..." Dinu must be pained too. And... I did not see any of her vivosaurs earlier. Are they alright? Maybe she is just... exhausted. That alone is a worthy enough reason. We must all be exhausted by this point. I only worry for the next time someone else snaps.

"Yeah, we probably should."

"Why... do you continue to support me?"

He smiles slightly. "Cuz I like you too, obviously." O-Oh. Of course. "Heh... And I agree more than disagree with what you think, so... well. Pauleen and the others'll probably need to come too, and, like, Mistress and them."

"Yes," I murmur. We are quiet again then. "She must be around here somewhere. She was never one able to uphold the sight of a quarrel... But—yes, you are right... especially if she manages to find an ancient before long." Oh... dear. My solace is at least once I gently call for her, out my mapo queen ventures from under the bed.

 _Sorry, dearie._

I smile. She hops up the bed and rests on my lap for a moment. _Don't be sorry. It was scary._

 _Yes it was... but I'm supposed to be strong, dearie._

 _You are strong,_ I reassure her, gently petting her head, _simply not in this area._

She goes on pouting, but I think it is more for play than anything else by this point. Mier scoots closer to pat her head too... I think she is growing fond of him. I cannot say she is the only one.

Soon after, there is a sharp knock upon the door. Hard but careful, as if expecting the wood to fall apart because of how hard Dinu slammed it. Although... she did appear to put all of her energy in it, so for all I know it would not take much of an effort to send it all reeling.

I glance over at Mier, catching myself wipe at my cheek as I do so. "Do I look like I was..." Oh, I lose my nerve, but I believe he catches my meaning with a bit of recognition in those... gentle, golden eyes.

"Do you want the truth or what's gonna make you feel better?

I sigh. He giggles. "No. You don't look like you've been crying."

Wait. "Was that the truth?"

"No." He giggles again before looking back toward me. There is a small pinprick of honesty, of belief. "But I'm sure you'll be fine. I've seen you cry a small number of times now and really... it just makes a point." And then he just turns back, musing, as my cheeks flush for the umpteenth bloody time. "You can come in!" he calls to the door, and soon it swings inward and a dark face peeks through.

"Oh. Pauleen," I murmur in greetings and lift up onto the floor to go and greet her. She takes one look at my weak bandaging and steps in quickly and presses me back somewhat.

"You really diga-don't need to be walking this much! Like..." She sighs, rolls her eyes. "Well I guess you got up already so it diga-doesn't matter what I say. Whatever." The emerald eyes turn slowly upon Mier and myself. "So uhhh... Diga-Dinu? I'm guessing something violent happened over here too?"

I nearly come up with something to say when Mier steps up by me. "Yeah, pretty much. Rupert's cousin is... well, she's a puzzle. We were talking about finding her soon? Uhhh, did she go all over some crazy idea to get possessed by a whole bunch of ancients and then kill Dina with you too? Heh..." His eyes lower. He... does not like it either, does he...

"Yeaaah." She sighs softly. "That's pretty much what happened. I... what the heck? What's that supposed to diga-do, though? I guess I get what she's talking about, but we weren't really into the thought of just, like, _smiting_ diga-Dina, so she got all huffy and went your way." There is a pause as she looks up at the ceiling. "What made her think that would go any better..?"

Before we get much further, a certain bluenette tears through the opening and takes my hands and says, "Man... I forgot how scary Dinu is! Are you alright?" And Todd is not far behind... so I would presume that they must have been waiting for Pauleen to breach contact first. Oh... they are silly friends. Really, they are.

I smile softly. "Yes I am... thank you." It takes me a moment to remember and ask him, "Are you... faring well? Like you said, I mean... Dinu can be surprisingly ferocious. And so stubborn..."

"Mm? Yeah, I'm okay. I just forget sometimes, since I didn't see her as much as I saw you I guess, and you're more passive-aggressive and she's, well, she's _not_."

I sputter. "P-Passive-aggressive—"

But he goes on his merry way and blatantly ignores my question. Mier, with a little grin, assures me of I am not quite sure what though it makes my heart sink somewhat. "Yeah, well... I guess we go after her? Like, we can't just leave her to the ancients..." While unvoiced in the conversation, the end of his sentence is palpable in the air: _or we might lose her, too_. It's the _too_ part that hurts more... like we failed again anyways, like there is no... victory, but loss after loss after bitter, bitter loss. Like we never stood a chance in the first place.

To think like that offers no hope though... to think like that assures Dinu was right anyways, and Dina _will—_

I suck in a breath. No. She will not. She will if I do nothing but stand by and let it happen... which is _not_ what we are doing. "Yes, Luk." They all turn toward me. "Yes... Everyone, we should not leave her to her own devices. Outside of the window of chance she is possessed and harmed in some serious form... she is still out there; and it is possible, if not likely, that she will harness some ancient or another, find Dina—as she is the last one who saw her anyways—and... then it is finished." And I for one cannot have that.

"She's gonna get maaaaad," mumbles Luk. Beneath his foggy sense of nerves... there is fear, there is a hole inside of him, a great monstrous hole of fear sucking the sensations out of him. Maybe if I let myself think about it, I would be afraid too... of the ancients in general, the cold, my violent cousin—and it does start to wear at me but—but—but to forget about Dina... to lose Dina...

Pauleen stiffens and grounds her fists together. "Well! If she's mad, then I better get _furious_! I'll friggin show her, digadig!" While her tone is light, her eyes are not, and I am suddenly thankful we at least have this girl on our side. "Besides, Oni's diga-damn terrifying."

I would not doubt it. The weight in her words teases me not to.

"Yeah!" Todd cries from the back, toward presumably everything we just discussed.

Beside me, Mier plucks Mistress off of the bed. "Well then. We'd better get a move on, mmm? Gotta find Dinu, gotta save us a Din-Din..."

And again I swear I never heard a soul use that nickname in front of him, like I never heard one utter her name at all... and there it is. But I must be second-guessing myself, it is completely possible Todd used it once or twice in front of him... then why does my heart feel so... painful?

But there is no time to second-guess something as small as a name. I take Mistress myself and as the others collect their vivosaurs and move she forms into a smaller version of herself, one that fits well enough in this house, and she has me climb upon her. _You're staying here, Rupert, alright? Dearie, I care not if I go too slowly for any tastes; I follow safety!_

 _But... But Dina—_ Oh, but Mistress will have none of it with this bandage of mine, and so it is done as it is. At the very least her definition of "slow" is faster than I had anticipated, and I only bump just marginally on her back, my arms wrapped around her neck gently. She is soft and warm... in stark contrast to the wonderland outdoors. As we exit, the others round themselves up helpfully, and out we go into a heavyset white horizon.

I immediately sneeze and Mistress chokes on her thoughts. _Rupert! Maybe it better if we don't—_

 _Mistress, no,_ I whisper, _no, we have to find her, and we need as much help as we can get._ I turn myself to look at my other vivosaurs, these precious saviors of creatures, one of the larger reasons I am still here today, and I try my best to instruct them. _Pippy, take to the north—_ at our left— _where the trees were, I think you will see best. Gyntis go with him; we should utilize groups for maximized safety._ Somewhere there is a relieving sigh. _Sunny, to the south... go with Tessa._ The latter is thankful not to be paired with me and I think my little water vivosaur will be best on that downward slope with all of the snow she can empower to her will. _And..._ I sigh when I realize... _Camri, you and Mistress with me... let us go behind the cabin_.

The others begin to form their groups as well: there are five of us, only two of us own no vivosaurs. Pauleen still has Sivan and one or two others; Todd with his old, faithful three. I see him instruct Gren, his stego, to follow Sunny and Tessa; Eddie the edapho goes left with Pippy and Gyntis, and finally he hops upon his spiny Flower and nearly skewers himself but that is beside the point as he manages not to. And he goes forward. Mier quickly hops on beside him; Luk turns out and calls for Pippy, who ceases just a moment to let him on; Pauleen turns south with Sunny.

One of us in each area. Two in another... it is rather likely she went forward with all of those trees, but behind is always a safe option, as behind is not always thought of first.

 _Oh, I knewwww you would take me!_ Camri cries, galumphing happily in the snow next to us. _I knew you had a redeeming potential about you, Ruuuupert! Ohhh, I knew it was smart of me to believe in you! I never am wrong, you know. Did you know that? I'm quite the force to reckon with! Yes, yes... gaze in awe at me all you like; I know my body is rather attractive_.

I sigh softly, smiling sightly. _Yes of course, Camri._ I begin to turn away from him when I catch glimpse of his back again... and as my eyes travel the ocean-blue strip I note the lines that mark him. _Camri, what are those?_

He bursts off in his strange Camri laugh. _Oh! Oh! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Smart of you to ask._ They appear to make little pairs of two... like a numeral of some sort... _I always had a hope in your potential! But yes, these?_ He shivers his back and it shimmies up and down and up and... _They are... pairs! Every last one of them, pairs! I admit here that kronas are known for their tally-marks up to five but mine are all merely pairs! Can you guess why?_

I ignore his attempt at an alluring wink and decide not to question him any longer. He is such a... dizzying personality. It hurts sometimes merely thinking of him.

Wings sound in the air above. _Fwuuuu, fwuuu, fwuuu, fwuuu..._ I glance upward just as a thick, heavy shadow descends upon us. Mistress soon blooms into her usual colossal mapo queen size and Camri soon follows—his much larger than even she. The creature—flaming wings—descends upon us quickly, and before either of my vivosaurs can launch an attack he yells, _Hey, hey! I'm one of Pauleen's, don't do that!_

And so we do not assault Pauleen's dimorph ace. _I have a name,_ he mutters, _Flimp, okay? Call me Flimp._

 _Sivan, Flimp..._ I pause. _Are there not more of you? Was there not... who was it... a menchi, I think I recall? And someone else too..._

There I feel the wince. _Yeah, but... well. Pauleen's been... ah, different, little bit, ever since Oni showed up in her head, so... some of them got a little dramatic and preferred not to associate themselves with her._ Oh. _There's me and Sivan, we probably care the least, and the menchi—name's Blocko—think he went with the Todd guy, and... well, the others are angry._ I swallow slowly.

 _My apologies._

He nods slightly. I try to go on when Camri decides something else is in order and goes, _Whyyy, hell-o there!_ Oh no... _What brings you to our side of the cabin, mmmmh?_

It only sickens me more when I realize he has grasped the attention of the dimorph ace not only quickly but so _easily_ , so sublimely he grabbed him and had him hooked and... oh, Camri, I cannot stand you. _Well I must say_ , murmurs the transfixed Flimp, as if sleepily, _you certainly improved my likeness of this side._

 _Ohhh, did I now?_ Alright... alright. I doubt I can listen to this much longer. _I must say that I am not surprised, although that is of no fault of yours. Like one could try to resist me._

There is a pause. _Yes. Like one could try._

 _Then don't!_

I wish he would abide to the disgust I give off... but he is Camri, and Camri does not abide. Besides... somehow if but _slightly_ but _very_ slightly but _hardly_ slightly I think... of Dina. And how I always... want to hold her, and kiss her, and... love her, even if there are others around—even if her disastrous Torn is around. And if but very hardly slightly... there is a similarity. That of course does not mean I should indulge in his... idiocy, so I simply turn to ignore him and focus on my dear mapo queen. _Mistress, why is it he has no decency?_ And I am returned by a giggle... but it is a small giggle. And then she is quiet.

 _Um... Mistress?_ She still remains quiet. _Mistress, what is wrong?_ She shifts just so that the spine which curls above her eye shadows it, and the other one she keeps nearly-lidded, and then her thoughts delve inside of herself... to which it is difficult to discern what she is thinking.

I think about it—I do—if but a moment—but the thought crosses me I could use on her what she always uses on me... that it is wrong to hide feelings inside of oneself, that she—and now I—want to know how she is, that I care. But... she would not like that. She is purposely hiding herself. And... And I was never very good at... opening up to others.

There is a sigh. _It's not all that important, dearie._

 _Mistress, it's important to you._ She twitches but otherwise is silent. _Why else would Mistress herself close off like this? Please, ah... there are people who find Dina unimportant, and there are people who find your wants unimportant too, but I do not find either of these unimportant and therefore it... it matters, yes?_

She caves. Never was she one to stuff everything inside of her.

 _A-Alright._ There is a wince. _It's nothing much though, dearie, really... it's nothing much._ She says this as she hangs her head low and refuses to look anyone in the eye. _Y-Yes, dearie... auh..._ And she fails, again, to say what it is, so she just looks in the direction of the overmuch krona, the one who flatters himself to gain attention from others.

I sigh. _Does he bother you, Mistre—_ No. That cannot be it at all... can it? She is the one who speaks up for him when I refuse to relent on my side, so then... oh, _oh_. Mistress... _Him? Why him, Mistress? He is... not a very kind... creature, you do realize? Not a very kind... creature at all. And his favorite company outside of adoring strangers is... himself. Mistress—_

 _Yes I know,_ she mutters, _I know very well where I stand._ Wait. Where she stands? If anything she is— _I-I get that...he is quite the high-class individual and he looks sharp yet... curvy and speaks in words you cannot agree with but I... it's not just his looks, dearie, please do not get me wrong..! I think... he is a nice man. I think._

Oh, Mistress...

But... she tended not to pry on me. So it would be rude not to return her favor... and besides, she cares, no? And one cannot stem another's feelings just with hurtful words. I... know this. I know this well. Dinu—Dinu is who we are searching for, what we have come to do, and... we should not deter so much from this. She could be anywhere... she and her—

 _Ssssssss..._

A thin, long, white tail slips along the snow.

I swallow. _Camri._ He jolts to attention at the sound of my tone, devoid of my annoyance or disgust. _Follow._ And he is loud and huge but he follows well enough, and he is big enough to follow that thick tophis wherever it goes, and it is not fast enough to escape so quickly. _Flimp_ , I add, _circle ahead, the others must be around here somewhere._ He goes swooping upward as I try to recall them— _They were all neutral vivosaurs... she had two of the type Reyna—ah, kryptos, two of those and this one stout black one with flowers on its bodice._

Camri giggles at bodice but moves on quickly enough. It is close enough, yes?

Mistress picks up speed while being careful to make as little noise as she can manage, landing in lumps of snow with a sort of grace I doubt many others could manage just so like hers. An intensity begins buzzing in my skull—and my heart leaps—and Mistress goes faster, faster, careful but faster until she has to slow down and even though I ask her not to she does anyways... when we swerve around a tree so thin and sparse we would not have noticed had we still been going fast. There is a sound of pride at herself for that... one I cannot deny her.

When the krypto slams into us.

 _Ahh..!_ At my retort, Mistress slams back into it and struggles to move through the snow, backward, backward, slipping through it with an ease I recall Sunny reciprocating as the krypto must fumble to grow near. She juts her maw and shoots a beam of water that forms into ice as it splays onto the krypto and freezes its hulking black head and big white body, frozen right in its place.

A creepily unintentional half-smile glimmers on the frozen, meaty face. Still flexing... still flexing...

From above, Flimp loudly counts. _Twooo, threeee! The other three right heeeere! Well I guess you got one but look out! The girl's not far ahead!_

 _Go for the girl!_ I instruct him and he goes for the girl, zooms through the air with crippling speed after wherever it is my cousin went off to... where the power feels stronger.

Camri still lies just at the edges of my senses. The slick sensation of poison has... _Ahh—Camri, focus, I know it stings but you must focus and please keep an eye on that tophis, you must eliminate it before it comes our way..!_

Whether he hears me or not is questionable. I receive no acknowledgment. Well... I still have Mistress, and we still have a small arsenal to defect. As the second krypto rounds from one corner I instruct her to prepare for the left flank and then the other—a mihu—shows on her right and I realize there is no way she can focus on both attacks at once so she runs off toward the second krypto and shoots water at him first and manages—I think—to encase him, only I look over and her flank—her flank is bleeding.

Oh. The mihu is... fast.

I stagger and my hand claws for the place on my side that has doubled over in hot red... ahhh... But I... lift my head and... I cannot see the dratted thing anywhere... it must be hiding, waiting to ambush again. Well— _Mistress, let us go find Flimp,_ and she abides, panting softly, so we do.

It takes a moment as the stabbing continues in violent thrusts of seconds to pinpoint where it comes from and as soon as that happens Mistress is on her, foot above her, water hardening, crystallizing about her... and thank goodness for ice, thank goodness. They may escape in the approximation of minutes to hours to the very next second... but there is time. Which is good. Mistress is... exhausted, her pain coming off in waves upon me.

Finally we reach a little clearing which is mostly taken up by the dimorph ace. Just in front of him, I sense the presence of another... As we duck into the clearing I catch eyes with the girl. She lies there, trembling, glassy eyes wide, facing the world above her now condemned to the big hot fire creature surrounding her. I think she is—she is— _is she breathing_?

Before Mistress makes much of a cry I jump from her back and roll and stand and get myself over to the side of my cousin. Her cheeks... hot, and forehead inflamed and did she have a fever before she came to the cabin? Was the entire time I thought she was thawing really revealing the sickness inside? Is she hurt? Where? Her arm is twisted... unnaturally, and pry as I might I cannot seem to force it loose.

My heart beats threateningly so in my chest. I take her head in my hands and she manages to seek mine out, her golden meeting mine... and all of the sharpness she comes with, her bite, her aggression, her spite, the entirety that is Dinu dissolves inside of those irises.

"D-Dinu!" No, no, no no no... I pull her head close to my chest and somewhere in hers I feel I feel—I feel something, I feel something, and my breath comes out in panicked squeaks that I try to ignore, oh, Dinu, _what are you doing_? I almost want to yell but I hardly have in the past so I doubt... I doubt it would do much anyways, and I just stay there, fingers shaking, as I stare into the snow and feel my cousin's frozen body heat against mine.

What happened to bring us here? Was it the conquest of power? Ancients streaming through their fossilized bodies that remain without revival again, some not even old enough to have fossilized at all, their overpowered souls intense enough to take over the body of a mortal so... easily. Or would that be greed? Power _and_ greed? Greed over power?

Why us? Of all people, why us? I never... e-even wanted power, I feared power, feared my father and what the corruption of those disgusting feelings did to him. Did Dinu? I... Maybe it matters not. Maybe it matters not what I think, what someone else thinks, what anyone else thinks so much as it happened and here it is and now we... live with it.

Mis...tress..? I stir slightly and turn in the direction she—was. When I hear the hissing again.

The ancients must be inside of _their_ heads too... oh, it is like as Flimp was saying, the power threw some of her vivosaurs against her, some of Flimp's friends distrusting and turning away from Pauleen. This sort of immense power... is not meant for mortals to experience, now is it? My heart thuds painfully heard in my chest, like each breath I take, like every time I close my eyes and little tears form at the edges from the cold numbness of this place.

 _Flimp,_ I rasp, _Flimp... go alert the others, please._ And immediately he does. Immediately he is gone in search of everyone else and immediately I crumple as I realize just how cold it was without him... bad it was already... and having him leave was a mista—

I... refuse... to give in. I-I... _refuse_... to let go. I refuse... I refuse... I _refuse_...

When the hissing continues, I snap my head upwards only once again I cannot identify where it came from... Snow comes down in cold hard fistfuls of hot white energy... and I see the shadow slinking behind my head, and I turn slowly the other way so he does not see me coming and then he leaps and I duck and I swerve and his tail flickers out of reach that bloody _tophis_ and when I turn again he has swung and my head reels and I fall... and little droplets of red snowflakes drip, drip, drip around me...

It is... hard to see... within such a warped world of... of all this... all this—

Dinu. I lurch toward her and manage to hold her body close again, her cold body, feebly flickering warmth like a candle on a dreary night...

but morning comes... morning comes... morning comes...

The next time the tophis swings at me I push Dinu in front of me—desperately—and he does not wish to attack Dinu, now does he? And so there is a truce, albeit a cursory, unwanted truce.

My head sheds its red tears... streaking down my forehead, little layers of red in my hair... down my face and droplets of red in the snow...

Breath after breath after breath crunches in my chest but I stay, I stay, I stay...

When sharp golden eyes manage to wrest their way up into mine, I nearly start. Woozy, and weak, she does not push me back like she would if she could, but she stares as little beady droplets of red drip down my face. And she reaches out a hand and gently touches my cheek as one falls and she stares at it, and then she stares at me, and her mouth sort of tips open.

"No more ancients," I whisper, as strongly as I can manage, though that is not very strong at all.

And she watches and she nods slowly and repeats it, no more ancients, and I think we are safe, I think it will be okay, when she asks, "Where did the bird go?" and I realize it was stupid of me to send him off, we should have gotten onto him... and Mistress—her medal lays somewhere in the snow over there... and Camri somewhere else... and now that I think about it my head is splitting, the pain so... strong...

But here... we are. Here I am.

"Dina... does... not... die."

I nearly lose consciousness just trying to say those words, four tiny tiny words, and Dinu musters a little grin.

"No... guess not."

 **Man that was intense! Haha... ahhhhh... Battle scenes always make me a little nervous xD**

 **Rupert's too much hahaha he's like I WILL NOT FALL YOU CAN'T MAKE ME HWAAHH and then he nearly dies**

 **yeah if he didn't have those three vivosaurs there would've been trouble, huh? Haha... ah... there would've been trouble... poor rupy, he finally manages something and he keeps getting hurt, heh, keeps getting big injuries... but I guess that tells you how hard he's fighting, too... really fighting for his Dina... heh.**


	15. Da: Terminal

**Me: man I wrote three entire Rupert chapters in a row, haha... actually in TSFF I would make four or five Jkonna chapters in a row at times and as cool as that was I think it'd be better to hold off at three maaaaybe four because I mean this isn't just Rupert's story and TSFF isn't just Jkonna's story, we have a lot more going on...**

 **Including Dina! Yay!**

 **Dina: TTwTT**

 **Me: did you know they're talking about killing you on the other side**

 **Dina: ;;w;; o-o-oh... I-I-I guess that is oka—**

 **Torn: -HOLY FUCK THAT IS NOT FUCKING OKAY! DDDAMN, TRIKKO WE GOTTA GO KILL SOMEONE I HOPE IT'S RUPERT-**

 **Trikko: -why would her boyfriend want to kill her-**

 **Torn: -LET ME DREAM, DAMMIT, YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE HIM-**

 **Trikko: ...sighs**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 15: Terminal

 _Dina_

Torn hisses as he steps closer. His head lingers on me, and then flips off to the darkened horizon. _Sshhhhit... you ever get the feeling something's about to happen? Like I mean, I mean a really, really fucked up sense of foreboding up in your chest, or in your throat or maybe in both? A feeling like... something horribly shitty is about to happen and there's nothing you can do to prepare for it? Cuz... damn, that's all I can think about._

 _O-Oh no_ , I mumble weakly, _that is not good._ Perhaps another memory is to surface... a really bad one? They keep popping up like little weeds at our feet, the zombiesaurs, the monsters, the hatred, the agony. Zoazoa as she looks up at someone with those big, desperate eyes the color of... of curdled blood, no less.

 _No, it's not memories, it's... it's something else. Not sure what. I know that feeling by now—it's a bitch and I hate getting used to it but I_ know _that feeling, of the memories. No this is something fucking else entirely and man..._ He sighs. _You feel it, maybe?_

I drop my gaze. _N-Not really... I am sorry..._

He scowls at the horizon, the creator of all of our tension and dispute. _Ugghhhhh. At least if you knew what I was talking about... I'd feel a little better about it. But what the hell. It's probably something else stupid. Hhhh..._ Soft sigh. His tongue flickers. _Dammit. I hate this._ And he leaves it at that, because what else is there to say?

 _Torn, telling us just how much you hate something isn't going to get us anywhere._

My dimetro turns around to roll his bright pink eyes. _Yeah, shut up, Trikko. I know you hate it too! Let me get mad!_

 _Yes, well getting mad isn't going to solve anything._ He snorts.

 _What the hell can we solve in here, though?! We're practically fucking trapped as it is! You fucking know that, Trikko; we all fucking know that! The only way to escape is to—_ With a hitch in his breath, he pauses, eyes narrowing and streaming toward me. He winces, then goes on. _The only way to fucking escape is to leave fucking Dina behind._

Trikko curls his lip. _I know, Torn. And eventually, I get the feeling our intrusion of this zone will be noticed, and rather soon at that...we've already been here for so long... it only takes one slip-up and our entire cover is blown. Mmmh..._ He narrows his eyes then too. _Dina, how much farther do you think our Zoa's memories will go?_

 _Um..._ I blush. _A—A little farther? She is... She is my age now, and I think she was around my age when whatever happened, um, happened. A-At least, from what I have heard from her, it sounded... around my age. So... soon... w-we should know. And then... and then..._ They might leave. I-I know they do not want to, but things might force them to leave anyways, and then I will... be _alone_... in here. In the vast, dark emptiness of this chamber of sorts... no blue light... nothing, just nothing. And nobody else.

And where will that leave me? With Zoazoa outside, and myself inside... I-Is this a trap? M-Maybe... just to hold me for as long as it takes for whatever it is she is looking for.

 _When I last saw one of her memories, Trikko,_ I start, and he turns, _she was... being rejected by people as she grew up. And—And I saw it when Reyna and myself left the monsters and all of you behind. Away from... everything. Mnng... Why would we have to move somewhere else just to experience whatever it is the girl is trying to show me?_

His eyes twinkle if but gently. _I don't know. I'd love to give you a straightforward answer, but it's gotten to the point where I just don't know anymore. What to trust... What's real... It's all become one gigantic mass of variables._ Lowering his voice, he glances over to his best friend and whispers softly, _Yes, Torn, I do hate it too._ Sigh.

The ground beneath our feet is not simply sand, is it? Dark particles that cannot take in the light Torn emits upon them except for a subtle, almost imperceptible glow. This is not... sand, or dirt, or rocks, I do not think, but s-something else entirely. Something else... also outside of the window of probability and knowledge Trikko tends to. Something else that might not make much sense if we were to figure out what it really means. But it... it coordinates, with the musty dark sky, where certain moments take place, and I cannot help but imagine what it is that conducts this message of sorts.

 _Will Nyra and the others be back soon?_ I whisper.

Both of my beloved vivosaurs look back at me with exact replicas of compassion. _Oh, you poor thing,_ murmurs Trikko while Torn just tosses back his head and laughs it all off.

When Torn is silent again, my tricera goes on. _Yes, I think so, Dina. They're powerful too, no? They're just... searching. Trying to find anything out there in this barren... dust bowl. They're larger and their eyes are pretty fair off—well, not Reyna's, but she has her overpowered instinct going for her—and I'm sure if anyone can find anything, it's the three of them._

 _A-And they did not take Torn with them because the light might... might..._

 _Yeah, we're thinking, like, maybe my light fucks things up or something? Was that what we were going with?_ Torn snorts. _I don't know, something like that. Just to be safe or whatever nonsense you guys keep telling yourselves. Just to be fucking safe._

Trikko shakes his head, smiling slightly. _That's right, Torn. Surely you know how important safety is?_ He lifts a foreleg to point it at me. _Yes?_ With a snort of contempt from the dimetro, he is satisfied. _She's the only one of us who hasn't regenerated what wounds she's gotten. It's... a little spooky to see that of course, so we have to keep her as safe as possible. And I'm surmising that once those zombiesaurs show up, we do as Reyna and Dina did last time and just follow them, get it over with. If they're coming, might as well, right? It'll hurt least._

 _Hurt least._ Torn dips his head for a moment, staring at the sand-like particles too. His tail lashes behind him, his eyes wide and thick and fearsome with energy, and he raises his body and steels it for whatever comes next.

 _M-Maybe it will be somewhere we have already seen?_ I whisper. The two give me curious stares, so I sit down on the ash-like residue and draw out what little diagram I have managed to think of. There is toward the right a great circle representing the forest where the mother of Zoazoa was killed, and then further down to the far left the castle where Zoazoa and her father talked about scary things, but it was more north of there, maybe a little right too, that we saw her be rejected by passerby again and again and again...

Torn crouches down on one side, Trikko in the other. _Hmmm. Maybe I would've noticed, had I seen all of the memories,_ he muses, _but I only was there for the first._ My tricera reaches out to tap the little area where I depicted a circle representing the castle. _I get the feeling it was there, whatever happened next. Mind you, this is all speculation, and I'm making inferences on possibly lopsided data... but I think whatever goes down would occur between she and our old friend Zongazonga—_ Torn and I grimace; Trikko snorts— _would occur there. We haven't really seen him outside of the castle anyways. So..?_

 _Y-Yes, maybe,_ I squeak.

 _Well, I can't fucking tell anyways,_ Torn assures us, _so Trikko's got the best idea._ He giggles as he adds, _I mean, if I tried to come up with anything I'd just be pulling it out of my ass, so like... eh._ He shrugs at his friend. I think... Trikko is a little proud of what little we uncovered.

He lifts his blue-and-red paw to straddle the circle again, and he draws a thin, careful line from the castle to the middle circle where we are near now. _So... how exactly do we go southwest from here is the question? There's not much of a guidance except for... going on feeling. Ah, darn. Dina, feel like guessing a direction for southwest?_

 _Mmmm..._ I giggle softly. _How about this way?_ I turn around and point behind me, but a little bit left.

 _Ah._ He snorts. _Good enough. Come along._ As I go over to his side to climb up on him, he pauses and murmurs, _Oh... I see what you did there, actually. In the assumption you haven't turned all too much from the place we are now, then that_ would _be southwest, huh? Although there is still room for error, it's good enough._

Torn, oh Torn, does not quite understand what we are saying. _What the hellllll? Guys, room for error? And southwest? I thought we were just picking a random direction! Guyyyss, dammit, stop being confuuuuusiiiiing..._ He goes off to toss his head angrily. At least, it looks angry, but I think he is not all that mad, really... just does not take the time to ingest the conversation.

Trikko understands. _Torn, if you actually cared what we were talking about, you'd know what we meant._

 _Sh-Shut up._ He pouts. He has gone a little ahead of us, his blue tail lashing again.

Sometimes I think they do not talk to elaborate and establish a connection between each other through the meaning behind their words but simply the usage of words alone, the stream of conversation, holds them accountable for one another. It is... sweet. Maybe it is different but it is sweet and if it makes them happy then that is good... And I do not think Trikko likes it when he has to share an intellectual standpoint with someone else who is also of powerful thinking. I think he likes... helping us. Because then he is useful, then he has purpose with us. A very strong purpose indeed...

I rest my hands on the head of my tricera as we go on, smiling softly to myself. It is warm on him, his warm body, but not hot like how Torn gets with all of the fire in his blood. A gentle warmth, like the element he represents... I have yet to see Trikko be scary like water gets, a mass of curdling hatred and thoughtlessness and... maybe he is not like that. Maybe he is calm waters and that is all. But I like that too. Calm is strong too. Torn is not calm, in favor of a feisty flame. But that makes him strong too. A different strong... but still strong it is.

Heh. I am surrounded by strength...

It is quiet, but not a bad quiet, for some time. A warm... sated sort of quiet, one where words are not needed to express emotions, because they are all out there in the open and... it is a nice feeling. My heart still thrums slightly in my chest, reminding me of what is to come and what has come, but I know I am safe, too, right here. I... I will miss them... when they—

N-No... do not think of that until you need to. Then you will... just be sad. And th-that is no good.

Aaah... a little scary is all... that is all...

Trikko suddenly swerves beneath me. I squeak as his body contorts and he mutters something under his breath and forces himself sidelong again. _Torn, over here! They're coming!_ Immediately my dimetro speeds up to him and the two carefully maneuver using every last precious strand of blue light, pointing further ahead, slanted to one side. _Those zombiesaurs... ugh..._ He tosses his head and rams himself forward, then faster, then faster. _Well, at least we know we were pretty close to the right way now._

 _Trikko, I got an idea!_ chimes my dimetro. _Just step back, okay? Step real back!_ While he snorts softly and shakes his horned head, Trikko complies quietly. Torn surges forward, forward, his legs tough on the ground and his body taut, when he lifts his jaws wide open and an inferno spills out of his throat.

 _fffhhhHHWOOOOOOOOOHHSSSSSHHH_

I cannot hear—cannot hear Trikko breathe—cannot hear Torn—my heart—my beating heart disappears beneath the wave, the overflowing wave of heat and I cover my ears and I stay there rasping, rasping, but I do not hear my breath either. My body shivers, slick with sweat, slick with a squeeze of heat roiling down my figure... shivering, shivering... and when it is over I am depleted. My head I rest in my hands... it hurts to breathe... my throat is raw, as if I have been screaming seamlessly for hours and hours on end.

Shaking his head, wincing, Torn glances up toward me. _Shit..._ he rasps.

 _Heh._ Trikko smiles slightly. _You could say that again, my friend. What a flame._

And then the zombiesaur explodes through the ever-consuming flame and we all cry out because this is no fair... _Well shit we're running now, everyone ffffucking RUN!_

And so it is. Trikko struts forward and Torn follows on his flank as we near his outburst, the one that perished two of the zombiesaurs to molten hunks of flesh on stick-like bones, charred ashes, gooey—ahh, I look away weakly as Torn yells at me to. A-And even so one or two or maybe even three of them escaped through the hot burning grip anyway...

As we pant and pant and the two of them run as quickly as they can make themselves go, I whisper, _Th-That was amazing, T-Torn..! Really, really a-amazing..._ Even my voice is haggard, and the tire that pools off of my vivosaurs flickers in me. They exert so much of themselves for me, for their fighters...

 _Haaaah! Thanks!_ He has to pause and cough up a worrying amount of smoke. _It was... well, hell, it was... it was hard! But... dammit, those saurs aren't fucking fair! Holy fuckety fuck shitty shit on their asses, those... damn cheaters!_

I giggle. _Y-Yes! They are... cheaters..!_

Trikko snorts in between bated breaths. _Oh, the two of you: Torn, as insane as that was, you just need to understand that you're not strong enough to maul more than two of three vivosaurs with such an attack at once. As overpowering and massive and utterly, literally_ insane _that fire of yours was, some of them must have realized it was coming after the others burnt and waited for the right moment to charge through it as it weakened. I admit what you managed was an insurmountable feat I can't begin to comprehend you having the capacity to accomplish, that I applaud you for..._

And then Torn snorts. _That's right, buddy; bow down to me._ Trikko makes no such effort and the both of them chortle softly. Then he asks, hesitant, _Was it really that cool?_ in a soft, unbelieving whisper.

 _Heh._ The smile my tricera bolsters is one hard to miss. _Yes. I promise you I'm not one to exaggerate, but... goodness, Torn. Seriously. This is the third time I've said it, but that was insane. I'm still trying to understand how you managed that._

He is smiling too. And he coughs another small hairball of smoke, and he whispers, _Yeah, I don't know how the fuck I managed it either, I'll be honest._

Pause.

 _Torn. Stop talking._

 _Buh? T-Trik—_

His voice is quiet, nervous. _Torn, you're going to hurt yourself if you're not careful. Stop talking or you'll tax your burnt throat more than you already have managed to. Stay... quiet. Okay? No more talking until you stop coughing that vile smoke._ Quiet again for a moment; then, _Good job, though. Good job._ And anyone can feel the pride pouring out of my dimetro as he gently snaps his maw shut.

 _Heh..._ I smile softly. _I like you both too._

And then we both hear it: my body shaking, throat squeezing, chest contracting, little coughs... _Ahh, Dina, you no talking either! Of course Torn's attack left you rendered weak too... My goodness, what am I going to do with the two of you? Aah... how did either of you make it past the Hurican house like this?_ He pauses, musing, silencing any of our attempts to answer him. _Well you weren't allowed out of your medal, were you, Torn? Dina, you were scared of him getting hurt or something, right? Well. Whatever works._ He snorts. _What a good thing you have me now._

His voice is not smug, and neither is his grin, when he whispers that last sentence.

Torn begins to regain use of his voice once we enter a faintly-glowing area. I point at the castle on the horizon, which is back... only behind it something else has been lit. I squint as I try to pinpoint what exactly that is... high walls, spiny tips, big open area... it looks like an arena, I would suggest? My tricera raises his great blue-and-red head to see what I see, and he whistles lowly.

 _It does look like an arena. Oh—That's right, Zongazonga had mortals fight in such an arena with vivosaurs or zombiesaurs if they had none on hand to... I think... was it the death? It might've been to the death. And then the winner was crowned champion of sorts and, well, Zongazonga stole their body next, isn't that right? What a... sickening cycle._ Trikko grunts. _So I presume that's our next course of action?_

Torn winces. I swallow. But nobody rejects his suggestion... he is probably right. And so we go, sauntering onward, closer and closer to what may be a soon certain death for a lot of poor, innocent people from long ago. As the fence nears my heart quickens and my throat, oh, as long as I wait it does not feel much better than before... s-so the thing where my body refuses to recover must be happening even here... Nnnh... it makes me, um... queasy...

Until finally the walls are upon us, surrounded by rows of chain fence. As if expecting our approach, once we come close the gates of the arena cry, squealing open after years of exposure to the climate without a thorough cleaning, and then we are inside, are we not? It is not until we enter and the gates slam shut we realize we entered where the vivosaurs go to fight, not the... not the stands—little stairs on the outside, not so big and scary and enforced.

 _Aw, shit._

 _Torn, this is a memory, it shouldn't be too bad._

I try not to think about the time I hit my head on the stairs of the castle and it hurt.

When the people enter, then, too, they stand behind their creatures with carefully guarded expressions... like a long-worn memory some of the people do not have very distinguishable faces, muddied with time and recollection and more time again. I stare down at my white-scaled hands, shaking in little obvious flurries that I pretend are not there. Trikko grunts softly.

Even with their blank expressions, it is easy to tell the nerves that crackle about the arena. The faces, while lackluster, still contain explicit forms of fear, and they shift worriedly from place to place... be-be-because they know they are going to die, d-d-do they not? They know... they are going to die. And even the one who wins will die, will lose their body... to Zongazonga... like I did to—Ahhhh...

I curl up on Trikko and stay there for a little while. It hurts too much to think about it.

 _Oh, shit shit shit shit,_ mutters my dimetro as his tricera friend winces softly without word.

And then there is a scream and a tear and a slash and something goes _splurch!_ and something else goes _ghhhch!_ And there is shredding, shredding, a lot of shredding and gooey extracts when something completely different drowns out the voices by a... scream. We all lose the breaths we were holding and I jolt to look up as—as Zoazoa enters, the gates left teetering behind her.

The three of us turn and further on the left there is a throne where Zongazonga lies, his harsh face and dark hair beginning to wither with the stress of age, of possession for the poor, lost soul inside of him. He needs... a new body. Or he will not be here too much longer. So to keep going, he had the tournament. And for the tournament he needs a victor, for it is with a victor that he is able to continue his otherwise unlimited cycle. S-Sickening indeed.

"DAUGHTER!" A great, booming shout feels like a presence left stained in the arena. "DAUGHTER, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

She is smiling weakly and crying, crying for the people to escape. And again—again it thuds in my chest as it starts to make sense, as first Trikko lets in a harsh breath and then Torn realizes it too, and I close my eyes and cover my face and it is all I can do to hear her screaming at the people to escape, because she is strong enough to defy the one person who actually went out of their way to love her... cruelly or no.

When she turns, she yells, "I CEASE YOUR VENGEANCE, FHH-FATHER! CEASE IT SO THAT NOBODY ELSE MAY FEEL IT AGAIN!"

His voice hisses out with him, a poisonous, lecherous mist. "DAUGHTER." Then quieter. "Daughter." Intake of breath, gentle release. "There is nobody in this world but for myself who ever dared to lift a finger for you. So what is this, now? What is this... rebuke?" And I realize in the catch and the hitch of his tone he is still hoping, still _hoping_ this girl did not mean to... hurt him.

And then it hurts to listen so I try not to but the voices—the voices are like they are all in my head so it is... of no use.

"You are a... MONSTER." Even so. E-Even so she still... Wh-What a powerful, p-powerful girl... "YOU, F-FATHER, ARE AN OVERPOWERED PURGATORY, AND I INTEND TO RELINQUISH YOU OF YOUR VILE REIGN."

He still cannot believe it. "Daughter?" He-He _still cannot believe it_. "Daughter, is this how you really feel, after everything I have done for you?" And I think he winces. "Rhhh... Really?" Then—no, that is something else... an immense power pouring out of a vase, splintered upon the ground and oozing, oozing outward into the atmosphere.

My head is splitting.

She whispers, "This is how I always felt." And when I manage to wrest open my eyes again, I watch as a monstrous creature far exceeding Torn or Trikko in size, bones thick and congealing from a human body left dry on the earth, tail lashing, rough wings flickering above him like old cloth, spires of teeth, as a monster vivosaur breathes in the face of a tiny, wide-eyed girl.

And then he gently wriggles his maw open. And a stream of cold, black energy whisks out of him and immediately the fire in her eyes, finally untapped, streaming with emotion and hate and yearning and need, and asking for love, finally it is snuffed.

 _Shhhhhhhhssssshhhhh..._

The tiny ancient loses control of the atmosphere and dissolves into the fog about her. I lose sight of her.

Oh, so casually, Zongazonga raises to his haunches and grins thinly. His corded tail smacks the body of his last vessel in lumpy halves. Big black pits of eyes search and find and one thin, long, abnormally-shaped arm latches upon one of the people in the crowd.

A little girl.

The soul streams and fits and squeezes into her body, and then there is no more little girl, now is there?

We stay there but a second longer and Torn screams. _SSSSHIT! GUYS, WE'RE FUCKING GOING, RIGHT FUCKETY FUCKING NOW! HOLY DAMN!_

We comply as quickly as we can, out, out, Trikko running, Torn running, my fingers digging deep into hard scaled hide, their full-force dashes melding into sprints as they go and go and go and go until the castle is so far behind we cannot make it out and our sides ache so heartily after it all.

 _Not again,_ wheezes Torn, _not a-fucking-gain_ , and it is decided. Not again, not again, not again. I rest against the top of Trikko, his head shaking with soft pants as he gasps for breath, and I try to focus on swallowing and breathing myself, their combined usage of energy a sour feeling in my stomach, and I just try to focus on the bluish tinge around me. We are shaking, all of us, to some extent. She is in my head, the big desperate red eyes, wanting but not receiving and still trying to do her best for everyone else and failing spectacularly anyways and...

And this is the girl who has taken over my body. How can I lift a hand against her when she... when she did all of _that_ and it was not even for her own good and it certainly did not result in it? This poor... girl. H-How can I say I have a right to live when she—

 _DINA!_

I start, heart beating.

 _Don't fucking say that, dammit! Don't... say that! Ugh, Dina, I don't care about what shit just happened to that girl; that doesn't make it any better of her to go and fuck you up like she has! Okay! She made her damn choice and that choice fucked_ her _over; she can't take that out on you! Not... not_ you _, of all the REALLY SHITTY PEOPLE in this world! SHE SHOULD JUST GO TO HELL NOW!_

He is shaking, his voice cracking with every yell. But even so he does not stop, no, refuses to stop until he has slammed all of his words into me, until he has told me what he needed to. Then he is quiet, panting harder than ever, to which Trikko takes over. Softer, calmer, but the intensity is just as present as with Torn. _Torn's right, Dina. Listen to him, if nobody else. He knows you best. He's known you longest, hasn't he? He's seen more than enough suffering out of you... Really, we all have. Don't... throw your life away for somebody who's already too far gone. And I mean... this is_ your _life. This isn't hers._ His breaths begin to soften, to lessen, as he controls his breathing.

I whisper, eyes thick, _But who is to say I deser—_

 _YOU DO!_ Torn again. _DAMMIT, DINA! YOU FUCKING DO!_ Smoke hisses through his breath and the rasp—the rasp returns. _STOP THAT! YOU DESERVE ANYTHING YOU FUCKING WANT, DAMMIT!_ Coughing, coughing. _ANYTHING! DON'T KEEP TELLING YOURSELF THAT BECAUSE IT'S SHHIT, IT'S NOT EVEN TRUE._

He bursts off into coughs of smoke again and I go quiet. Breathing quietly, softly, head in my hands, and I just hear him rasping, rasping, coughing, again and again, and it hurts my ears to hear it and it hurts my heart to know I—to know I—if I had simply... if I...

My tricera is quiet beneath me. _If... nothing else. Remember the boy. Yeah... I heard your little memory of him in your thoughts earlier. He sounds sweet. That's good. I think you need someone sweet more than someone salty, or loud, or... heh._ He does not mention it, but we both know who he is poking fun at. Torn has lost the cough in his throat and swallows constantly, breathing deeply. _He'll be okay. He's a strong one. And he likes yelling, makes him feel like he's heard. You just... it's not even that you don't listen. You just don't... believe, I guess, and there's not much we have to convince you. So it's difficult._

 _O-Oh._ I bite my lip. _S-Sorry._ He is quiet. _Um... why are you not mad too?_

 _Heh. Because I know we lack the sufficient materials to prove to you that you're more deserving than you think you are. I know you won't listen to us... You need something specific that you're missing. That we all know you're missing. You won't even bring it up, though. Ah... I guess the guy really left his mark on you if it messes with you this much that he's not by your side anymore..._ and he trails off with that, staring into the black distance.

 _M-Maybe_ , I mumble. Something... Something about that word too, but I miss it, and I let the memory float off into other unintelligible Missings.

Torn raises his head slowly. _Ah, Dina... you drive me insane, I swear._

Trikko chortles. _Is this why you blew out the zombiesaurs with fire? Is Dina the one who drove you to your insanity?_

 _Heh. Shut up. You fucking suck at jokes._ But he is smiling too.

 _Sorry, um,_ I mumble, his yells and his coughs coming to mind, _you are upset with me..._

The amethyst eyes raise toward me. _Hey, hey... yeah, I am a little bit... I, ahh, okay, more than a little bit, but that's cuz I care about you and you keep trying to convince us that you're worthless. That's... not okay. That's shit. Yeah, that. And... we're pretty stubborn creatures. So my thought is eventually you'll give in, because I'm not gonna. So it'll be all good soon. Just go-tta keep shoving~_

 _Torn, are you humming?_ My tricera sounds disgusted. _That is nasty. Torn, stop. You are nasty._

 _Hrrrr, fuck you too! I'm just trying to add a little bit of light to our dreary-as-all-hell atmosphere! C'mon, sing along and it'll be alllllllll fuckin' fine._

He sighs. _I am not, and you cannot make me._ They continue on their petty squabbling, one word after the other, soft words without real aim or real target, just little things that keep them talking, one of them laughing after the other. And it is warm, their voices, their hearts. I am sure not all of them... are so warm... even so. But I like the warmth, the nice warmth, the comforting warmth. Guilt pricks at the edge of my mind, thinking about what Torn and Trikko told me, feeling hot, welting shame at my inability to comply... but she did choose me, did she not? And she... t-took my memories, and took my body, and took me over so completely that this is all that there is left of me. I cannot even remember the majority of my life: just moments, tiny moments scattered across a great space-like vastness, a void of null.

Maybe one day. Maybe.

" _Maybe one day... I will tell you about me."_ That is... that is my— _"And maybe one day... y-you will tell me about..."_

 _"Maybe, Dina... Until then."_

I jolt, covering my face with my hands again. There it—There it was. The memory is older, weaker, softer than the one earlier, and I am in this one too, my quiet voice... but so is he. So is he. And I think that means he is important to me, very important to me, unimaginably so in this state of mine if it is these memories alone that continue to grace me... but then I wonder if I mean so much to... to him. Maybe. That makes me smile a little. Because maybe... can also mean yes.

That was something between us, I think. Once. U-Until we became, um, sure of ourselves.

What is this tugging... in my chest? What is this lump in my throat? What is the cold, hard truth that weighs down on me, the one I wish to pretend is not real but stubbornly remains? I... I think maybe... maybe I miss him. A-A-A lot. A whole lot. Really... really.

But... But that is the thing. As I am here now. And he is not.

Gently I take in breath after breath, my throat rasping and lungs grasping each one. My big eyes, big like hers, peer at this empty world around me, empty but for her snippets of memories... and it makes me wonder, I guess, really makes me wonder about her. About how she found me before she perished. About why she chose me... unless I was the first person she could find? Th-Then that is okay. And I wonder what inspired her to attempt to keep living... but maybe that is something she always had. Like the fight in her eyes, the burning hot fight. I never had that myself... I wonder how it feels, to have fight.

 _I... I am..._ They make soft sounds of acknowledgment as I work around the hard sensation of tears in my throat, and the roughness that burns beneath it. _I am... s-sorry, for not listen—no, um... for not believing in what you tell me._ Because I am. Because so much as I think about it... it hurts. It hurts to, it hurts to try, it hurts to even consider believing... because what is there anyways to believe in? And they are trying so hard too...

 _Mmh._ Torn grunts again. _So long as we don't go anywhere, I have belief in myself we can figure this out._

Trikko sighs in turn. His tail swishes methodically through the air, a soft noise blending into the silence serenely. _Torn, you can't force someone to do anything if it's not yourself. Surely you know that? It's like your love for Nyra; you can't force yourself on her thinking that it'll make her—_

 _SSSHIT TRIKKO, WE DON'T NEED TO TALK ABOUT THAT._ He splutters off and shakes his head angrily. _We don't... wh-whatever._ He coughs, but it is more out of awkwardness than anything. _Hell, Trikko, I don't, uh, I don't know what you're talking about._ He keeps on like that. Trikko snorts. _So, uh, uhhh... I'm not forcing Dina! I'm forcing_ myself _to change her! See? Then it works!_

My tricera just smiles.

 _You keep telling yourself that._

And we are quiet again, a peaceful quiet. And I think even if there are problems between us, between myself and any of them, that it does not stop us from enjoying one another anyways. I am... very thankful for them. Yes...

I am not sure how it happens, but at some point Torn brings up "that one time where we all beat up Todd's vivosaurs, you remember that Dina?" only it is not how I faintly remember it, because instead of it just being Torn and Trikko against the two Todd had, everyone is there and Nyra is drenched with flavorful adjectives and Reyna is "so blind" and "so deaf" that she bumps into the wall and breaks the stands, and "Trikko is an idiot so he immediately dies" because that is how it works, he implies, of course.

 _Heheh... But I did not even have Nyra then! And even if she was there, was it not weeks until the super revival that made her into a, um, a nycto ace?_

Torn snorts. _Y'mean glorious beauty?_ Nobody agrees. He scowls. _Well what the hell guys, of course you do! Whatever. Hnngh. Tough crowd, huh. Anyways she was totally there, obviously, because she got hurt by one of Todd's vivosaurs and I swooped in to heroically save her life, and then I was a heroic heartthrob because I am beautiful and—_

 _Buddy, don't flatter yourself,_ murmurs Trikko, chortling.

 _I aaam beautiful! Dina says so! Innit right, Dina?_

I giggle. _But of course!_ And Trikko groans about how "Torn's ego is swelling five times its original oversized inflation" so he asks Torn how beautiful _he_ is, and my dimetro reassures him that he is not at all attractive, but that is okay, because he is sure some other unattractive thing "like Reyna" will surely find him tolerable enough to be his mate. Then Trikko reminds him that as vivosaurs who fossilize and return millions of years later, they really do not require reproduction, so why do mates matter all of a sudden?

A certain nycto ace is in his thoughts but he goes dead silent.

 _SHUT UP, TRIKKO! YOU... BHHHASTARDIC BITCHHEAD, DAMMIT!_

To which he chortles solemnly.

It is some point around here that we have continued forward and forward and somehow it feels as if we have gone much farther than we once have before, and I realize, looking up from our side, that I am... I am recognizing where we are. A-Another... illusion, only this one takes shape with castle interiors collecting us inside and up a flight of stairs. Trikko and Torn take this in silently, but there are no zombiesaurs to yowl in our faces, so we may as well, yes?

My tricera is quiet. _I... I think I know where we're going. I'm... oh, no, I'm remembering something..._ He winces. _Right... Right before I came—remember, I was the last one—I was running, and I was confused but I kept running and there was something incredibly important I had to tell you... incredibly important... and I lost it. Remember? Then... this means..._

 _This means..._ I trail too, but I am unsure of what this really means, so I am silent with him after that. My dimetro thrusts his shimmering blue head from side to side. A small fire of anxiousness hisses about him. It... curls my fingers into fists around the neck of my tricera as we watch, and wait, and keep walking.

Ducked down another corridor, down another flight of stairs, down past a hallway... my heart trembles. Down again, down, down... Another flight, another doorway, another entrance. They come by in such quick succession they begin to blur in my gaze. I cannot recognize one hallway from another, from the one we just exited to the one we are about to enter. And my heart beats... so hard... in my chest.

It does not cease, this stage-like repetition, the running, faster faster, until a little chamber up front beckons closer. Ornate doors tilt inward without a single squeak, and they stay there too, as if holding themselves open and keeping themselves quiet. My fingers run across the smooth, waxy surface of one of the doors as we pass and I gasp quietly. And then Trikko gasps too, and Torn soon after, so I turn and face the thick golden throne.

The girl on top of it.

Why am I sitting on the Nomadistan thro—

That is not me. Those eyes—searching eyes. The gaunt face. Something like untouched tear tracks down cheeks. Dirty, desperate, searching... I-I-I look filthy. I stare down to my body, my scales, my blood and the wounds that refuse to heal and somehow what is in front of me is... worse. Because that is not even me... that is not even... me.

W-W-Wow... what a weird feeling. Seeing another of her memories... Th-This one must be—m-must be _recent_ , too. Recent.

We turn as a _bang_ smashes against the doors and it is _Trikko_ dashing about the chamber and I lose sight of him as he swerves off somewhere near Zoazoa and then—and then—and _then_ somebody else calmly steps into the chamber, after climbing off of a vivosaur I do not get a very good look at and I try to glimpse the person here but... their face is so blotted out by poor memory that I cannot quite grasp it. And then my heart hurts... it hurts, it hurts as I step toward this person whose figure shimmers in and out of focus in front of me and I try to put my hands upon them but they pass right through.

I try to look into eyes that have melded into incoherent, incorrect placement. Black? Brown? Hazel? It is of no matter... it is too far faded and too far fringed to be of any use as it is. Not... much taller than me, or maybe shorter by a few inches? Nothing stays the same but for the... lips, which hold a tiny, weak smile that fluctuates from fully disappearing and an attempt to at least stay in place, when finally it holds.

Why... smiling? I think they say something but I miss that too, the memory is so, so, _so_ vague that the words do not even reach me, saying something and it does not even... but they continue, stepping carefully, gracefully in such a way I think I recognize it when Zoazoa scowls and stands from the throne, shaking feebly in my skin and I watch as she raises out of my shell and opens up her maw and growls and unleashes great fanged teeth and—

And I lose it all before I know what happens, tossed from castle walls deep underground into a pile of snow. My dimetro cries; my tricera sneezes weakly. When I look up, pulling myself to my feet, I turn over and someone else, similar but not to the faded figure is pacing. This one is not distinguished either... but I hear their voice.

"Ullh! Dina, what are you—I mean, agh, Zoazoa, whatever, what in the world?" When the head tips back, I catch a small coil of blonde hair and sharp golden eyes, a low and annoyed but palpably feminine tone. Zoazoa, from my side, _in my body_ , steps curiously to the girl who hisses and falters back and darts off.

I am breathing hard. My head... hurts. My heart aches, throbs so badly and I have trouble holding on to everything, to the little smile, to the voices, to the figure I almost, almost recognized, to this girl, to... Zoazoa inside of me, living a life that... that was... that I...

Wincing, I curl up slowly as the snow dissipates and I am left with but black, slightly reflecting the blue on Torn.

It takes me some time to lift up again, and I only stay in a sitting position. My body shakes. My head... it is hard to... hard to process. Someone else... someone else is me. Inside of me. Controlling, no—being me. O-Of course... I am sure the others can tell—l-like Dinu—that she is... _not_ me. But it still, it... it feels so weird, so strange, so... d-dare I say wrong... to watch somebody else in my skin live. And for a moment I think I understand what Torn means, I think I can listen to him, I think, I think—

Wings loudly swoop through the horizon.

 _N-Nyra!_ We all turn as I cry again, again, _Nyra! NYRA!_ and she goes faster and faster and practically slams into the soot amongst us and lifts herself and shudders and turns her gaze to us.

Somebody asks what is wrong. She sucks in a breath. _Trikko, you're absolutely right. Reyna's... Reyna's gone._

Reyna? I whip my head to the side like... like it will make her show up. But of course she does not.

Reyna is gone... Reyna is... is _gone._

Back. Back to where Zoazoa is. To where the girl inside of me is. The girl... The girl who is not me. And I think... I think that might be bad.

 _Reyna_

We were supposed to be looking for any sort of representation of... of what? Escape? I suppose different is the word. Anything not quite suitable for our cell: while rather large, it must obey to limits. Dina can't roam around just anywhere in here. And our job was to search out anything that didn't quite fit into those limits. Aladee brought up the fact that we didn't fit into those limits and he almost made Nyra laugh. Those beady eyes poked up at me but I... didn't give him the satisfaction.

 _Rey-Reyyyy!_ he'd cried, _Reey-Reeeeey! Smiling is good for you, and it makes you feel good too!_

 _Well I have no reason to,_ was my idiot response.

It's only by his taking the care to convert what Nyra sees and what he sees into my head, alongside their words, that I even am this far now. Without either I'd still be wandering, clueless, empty, in this void of ours. It's funny how similar it can feel to my disabilities. So it... well, it doesn't bother me. Though of course if this cell is what's keeping us trapped in here, it needs to go.

I think he noticed recently that I've been shrinking. It's not something I could explain... it's normal for most vivosaurs to have a range of sizes to contort toward, with a smaller more pocket-size and then our original heights. It's... strange, isn't it? But useful too. Useful for when I want to ignore Aladee all I need to do is stay larger than him and hold my head up. But that's the thing, isn't it? I don't like ignoring it. Makes me feel selfish, and foolish, and it clogs at my insides. But I do it anyways, now don't I? So what can I say?

And I'd begun to... feel a bit... different, too. Would that go under Nyra's suggestions? It was possible. I'm not sure how to put it: like my body was... without proportion, like I had no point of balance.

When I brought it up, she winced. _Trikko mentioned something about us not being 'trapped' here like Dina, that we're not supposed to be here in the first place but, you know, followed her. Maybe this realm is... fighting you, like... um, like an immune system against an invader?_

 _Oh that's lovely,_ I mumbled. _Leaving you all behind..._

Somewhere deep inside of me, my heart throbbed. I tried to stuff it down as best as I could manage, my fear, my anxiety, the stress of what happens next, of _leaving them all behind_ , of leaving _him_ behind, on his own, alone... and I think I managed well enough, but one's blind eyes can only hide so much when you can't hardly feel them yourself.

 _Rey-Rey? Oh no! You're not going, are you?_ His voice went shrill and I winced. _D-Don't goooo! Rey-Reyyyyy! Please please please don't goooo! Um um, fight it! Y-Y-Yeah, fight it good!_

I almost told him I couldn't fight it but I found I hadn't the energy to tell him.

It's a little hard to deal with his energetic personality, and his unending kindness, and his continual attempts to engage me, no matter how much I push him away. There's only so much I can hide from him without... some sort of reaction. But I had to... be careful. If I let him know what I really thought... there's no way. No way.

So I went with disgust. _Aladee, no. It's_ fine _. I'll deal with it when it comes. Just be ready to see me off._ Really, I was getting the feeling that this wouldn't go away very soon. It'd become difficult to walk without a wooziness bouncing off of my skull.

 _Mmmng! Rey-Rey, no! It's not fine! We'll miss you and be sad and that's no good!_

Oh, it's not just him now. He has to combine everyone else into his feelings. _Sh-Shut up. It'll happen and it's fine. You'll get over it. Besides, if it's starting, then you'll all be next._

It did feel like something tremendous was about to happen. My stomach wouldn't settle... my heart raced in my chest. Just—Just in case, my mind kept flashing that I should say it, just to be safe, in case something awful happened, but—no. No, that's ridiculous. Ridiculous...

 _Rey-Rey, you're going the other way? Why are you going the other way? Nyra's over this way! We're going this way now, we already went that way!_

Oh. _Never mind that._ I found that I kept going. _It's of no matter. Besides, I'm leaving soon._ And, oh, Aladee kept screaming at me but I didn't dare turn this time, and besides it's so dark in here... and I simply couldn't turn, not with... not with my body so...

Hey... ah, I was shrinking again, that's what that feeling was, but I already lost control of my energy levels so it wasn't something I could do much about. I just had to see how far I could get before it all but depleted me... Aladee kept shrieking at me from wherever he was, something about my figure fogging out, something else about my size, but I already knew that, so I went faster and faster until I couldn't go fast anymore and then I found myself panting softly somewhere further off.

I didn't know where I was at this point. No Nyra, no Aladee, no direction. Whatever. Stupid... Aladee. It—It didn't matter anyways, since I wouldn't be around here much longer...

And here I am now. Quiet. I think he's gone... I-I think he's gone. But that's good, that's very good, and I have n-no reason not to think so. So I stay here and I'll wait as my body does whatever it is it's doing because that... that... ahhhh... My head hurts. My heart hurts... I wish... I wish I told him but I'm happy I didn't, too, because there's no way he'd go that far for me, there's no way he'd think... he'd think...

 _...eyna..! Reynaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!_

Ah, curse him. This makes it harder.

 _OOOOHHhf!_

His little body slams into mine with such force I go reeling, and I see in his thoughts that his little beady eyes are trailing over my... tiny... figure. I'm even smaller than him at this point. Smaller than this little teeny raja, his head not much larger than Dina's herself, if even, his little body, his little feet... his cute... little... No. NO. Stop that. Stop.

He's here. It hits me like his thud all over again, he's here anyways. He keeps... following me, this idiot, he keeps coming anyways, even though I'm obviously shoving him off... and I'm blind and deaf... and weakhearted... and quiet.

And now I'm crying. Oh, no... Stop it. Stop it... _What do you want, Aladee? S-Stop following me..._

 _Rey-Rey..?_ And he steps closer. And I'm still crying. And I realize I'm shaking and I can't stop any of these things, least of all his quickening footsteps. _Rey-Rey... what's wrong? Why are you crying?_

But I don't want to tell him. If I tell him and I'm wrong, then it'll hurt more, and for all I know it'll hurt him too. So it's safer this way, to keep it all stuffed inside of me, isn't it? But I don't stop crying either, do I? Ugh... this is so... so ridiculous.

I think he finds it in my thoughts anyways, nosy little... B-Because then moments later he's closer, and his breath is all over my face, my stupid sad crying face. _Rey-Rey?_ Gently, softly, hoping, waiting.

Fine. Have it your way.

 _I'm crying because I'm in love with you._

He starts a little at that. I don't think he was expecting to hear it a second time. Well. I wasn't either. I wish... I wish I'd stop crying. The tears lick down my cheeks and make me look so... pathetic. And useless, more useless than I already am.

I keep giving Dina such a hard freaking time about it and here I am sobbing over the exact same thing. It's hard to believe in yourself. My... gosh, really it is. Especially when all you see are problems... and Aladee keeps staring at you and you see it in his head it's so... hard to believe. And then that doesn't help your self-esteem at all, now does it?

I hate this.

 _Rey-Rey. D-Don't say that._

 _It was too much to hope for. I-I get it. You're... too much, Aladee._ I sigh, curling into myself. _You're much too much... S-Stop trying so hard to make me feel better about myself. It's... It's not gonna happen like that._

Quiet again. And then, _Yeah, but... but Rey-Rey..._

No. Aladee, don't—

 _You pity me? That's no reason at all to—_

 _Reyna, stop it! I-I don't pity you! That's not why I care! You... You're really strong!_ He huffs out a breath when I smirk. _Yes you aaare! You keep pushing and stuff anyways, and you keep hiding your feelings, which... which looks really hard to do! And you get mad at people so they figure out what's wrong and get better and things!_

Sweet of him... but...

 _Rey-Rey... don't look so sad. It makes me sad... when you're all sad like that. Y-You don't need to be quiet around me. O-Okay? I don't want you to be quiet around me. I like... hearing from you._ I try to raise my head, to say some stupid, scathing, thoughtless statement, but then he's just in front of me and his warmth is all around me and I hate it but my voice hitches and I lose it.

 _I love you too, Reyna._

It's a little hard to say much of anything after that. _A-Ala—_

I don't feel my feet on the ground. Aladee squeaks—his thoughts slam into my head and there I am, there I am dissipating in front of him, melting into naught but... but naught! But nothing and null and that's completely, completely it.

The last thing I hear is his voice.

 _I'll come find you... wh-when it's my turn!_

I don't know what to say but I need to say something, my _gosh_ , so I hurriedly fumble through my thoughts and my memories and pieces of me and it's all returning, all of my lost memories, a monsoon, a waterfall, overflowing with memories when his face, the pale skin and the tiny smile and the cold voice and I remember who it was we all forgot about and maybe he won't remember yet but I cry, _LOOK FOR RUPERT! LOOK FOR RUPERT WHEN IT'S YOUR TURN! I'LL BE THERE, I'LL BE THERE!_

And so it is. I... I find myself hoping he hasn't changed his mind about anything when we meet again.

And I hope stupid, stupid Dina gets over herself when she hears that name.

 **Heheh, it was a little spooky writing Reyna's POV, I kept getting worried about doing it wrong... but I think I got her fine, haha.. TTwTT**

 **Oh and Rupert memories! Rupyyyyyy**


	16. Rt: Acceptance in Failure, Repeated

**Alright then, back to the precious passive-aggressive child**

 **Rupert: … -sighs-**

 **Todd: c'mon we all knew about it, you're fine**

 **Luk: I mean that's why we brought it up, cuz it's true**

 **Mier: haha...**

 **Rupert: I-It is not that true, is it?**

 **Todd: … no it's pretty true**

 **Luk: you like never confront anyone unless you have to, so you ignore people you don't like and you try to get around those you'd rather not be with**

 **Rupert: -winces-**

 **Luk: and then—**

 **Rupert:**

 **Luk: and then like, there's, I mean, your whole thing with over-protective dinaness**

 **Rupert: -turns around-**

 **Luke: SEE THERE IT IS**

 **Rupert: -hisses softly-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 16: Acceptance in Failure, Repeated

 _Rupert_

Blinking slowly. Colors and blurred forms tip around me and it takes another moment, another, another, for the world around me to begin to steady. I gently put my forehead in my hand—burning forehead—fingers frigid—and I halt, wincing... but how it throbs, and dips, and sways... almost as if there is a dance in my head. Raging streams of sensation lifting in every direction they can manage, sideways, leaps, jolts of immense power, whirlpools... I lie down after that, and I close my eyes again.

The next time I open them a starry-night ceiling peers down at me. And I sigh, gently, sagging back, relieved.

I think I hear someone else breathing in the chamber. No, not merely one... there is a softer one nearby, slower... asleep still, I would presume. Dinu, then? But if I move again I will certainly send a rush of wooziness to my head again, and I would rather prevent that, so I instead ask the other occupant in the chamber, "Is it merely she, myself and you?"

"Heheh." I know that laugh... but who is it that I heard it from..? Oh, this foggy mind... "Yep. You weren't out very long, by the way. I don't know whether I'm proud or mad at you at what you did; I mean, Flimp was a fire vivosaur and we get there and Mistress is down and Camri is way back down and you're literally hanging on by tiny gasps of breath... and I guess I can't keep worrying over you like this." And it hits me—Luk. This is Luk. Who else would accuse me of my actions and feel grief over them? Who else has, so readily, so much, since I first saw him in Nomadistan?

"No..." I swallow, struggling with my words. "No, I suppose you cannot. I continue... to surpass your expectations of me... but not in the way you would have liked me to. No?"

Footsteps, soft crunches of feet on wood. Closer, closer... until a head replaces the painted stars above. Twinkling hazel eyes, albeit subdued, his mass of blue hair crawling down his face, the goggles gleaming up in the mess like an old lost treasure one would find in the wreck of a ship. "Not particularly." His tone is light, gentle. "It's so... freaking weird. Nnh." He glances off. "You've changed so much since when I first met you... heck, you've changed more in these past few months than you have in the vast majority of your life..! Heh... you can't say that's not insanely hard to accept. I... knew you. I thought I knew you.

"Rupert," he mumbles, working over stubborn feelings, "you... you have a purpose, I guess, now. You have a reason you want to be here. And... And you never had that before. It only makes sense, though, that you'd finally take down all those barriers and try to be yourself, I mean, you'd want to for her... but it's just so... so... so _weird_ to see it. Okay? It's so weird... nnngh..." In a fit of embarrassment, he lifts his goggles out of his hair and releases them over his eyes. The blush on his cheeks is still highly visible.

"Dinu mentioned that as well," I murmur. Luk's eyes dart from beneath the misshapen glass. "That I have... I have changed. And she also seems unsure to whether she likes it or not. Well... she made her decision rather clear." I sigh softly. "It is that strange, Luk, is it _that strange_ for me to have found a reason to feel joy in my life? Is it that strange that I am... I am happy?"

But I never was happy, not really, before I met her, before I grew so attached to her. So... in a way, it is even strange for me. I am simply the only one who experiences the other side of it, the joy of... feeling loved by someone else. All they see is a cold and distant boy whose barriers melted and heart... completely altered, seemingly overnight. Not my hesitant approaches toward her, my attempts at initiating conversation... my failures. My trials, my renewals and attempts and the way she would _smile_ at little things like how her dimetro said something or how sunny it was today and how _thankful_ she was that I had done something as insignificant as say hello.

There are so few people who would do that. At least... in my world, there are.

It is so strangely comforting to see her do that, to be thankful for nothing but a completely normal day.

Perhaps the majority of these attempts... these ones to save her have not gotten me very far at all. Well... I must keep trying. If I stop... who else will save the little girl who loves the little things most others overlook... she with her small, gentle voice, the one who smiles at her foul-mouthed dimetro and snobby tricera and weakhearted nycto ace, the jumpy raja and sullen, blind, deaf krypto?

Speaking of. I have yet to see any of them, as of late. Even still they are... they are simply not around. I wish they were. Somehow I feel as if... if only I could find them, I would be a little closer to her. They are... attached to her. They hear her thoughts; she hears theirs. It would be them to know anything about her... situation, and what she thinks, how she feels...

"Where is everyone else?" I look up at Luk, who has gone distant, staring into the window. Dinu continues her rest beside me.

"Oh, ah... huh, that's a great question... hmmmmmm..." He glances back at the ceiling. "Let's see... Pauleen mentioned something about the ancient in her head getting all riled up or... I'm not really sure about the details, no idea if I really wanna be, but I think she needed to get some air outside. Todd's sleeping. That tophis got him good, but he'll be fine. And, uhhh... oh, right. Mier." He notices my gaze snap up to his and he hisses quietly. "Painting, was it? Upstairs. He said he didn't wanna be disturbed, so, uh, don't go upstairs." I think he smiles when my eyes falter.

"That is fine. I never thought about how hard it must be on him to host the lot of us when he has lived for so long in solitude..." Although whenever I mentioned it prior, he brushed it off saying that he liked the bustle, the difference.

Luk rolls his eyes. I get the feeling he cares not so long as I am not around the pinkette so often. Well. "Hey, can you sit up yet? I mean—don't, if it's gonna mess with you, but..." I wave him off gently, and when I work myself up to a seated position again, carefully, slowly, the world stays in its place. I sigh weakly and scoot over. He situates himself next to me, feet dangling over the edge of the bed; I sit crisscrossed. The bandages... are rather weak around my foot now. Whenever Mier is done, I should ask him if he can bandage it again. And when I shift it... oh, I think I hurt the already-broken bone with my last excursion...

"Um... Rupert, I mean, it's weird and all that our buddy Mier's only seen this side of you, when almost every single other person in this entire freaking world's only known the cold side or maybe seen some of both by now." He coughs, turning back. "But... oh, come on, you feel it too, don't you? Whenever you're around him... the amount of... I don't even know how to put it. Something... ominous, I guess."

"Sometimes," I whisper. The sensation of too much power, and then blindingly so... "I feel it sometimes. That does not—That does not mean he is a... a bad person. I think... he has his own problems. And, ah... he is struggling as much as us. Just in another area... like, the sudden population of his cabin, or... or something." We both hear how weak my prospect is, the way I gently force it into being, how... unsure I am of it. Because I... like Mier. And I trust him. And perhaps he is one of the very few who has seen this... caring, hopeful side of me, if not the only one who has seen that side alone. But that is a... a nice feeling, too.

Luk pouts. "Hmnnng... We're on your side, you know. All of us. We're all... we're all on your side. And that's a ton of people... s-so, like, you don't have to..." He swallows. "You don't have to keep running to him..."

Oh... When I look toward him, suddenly the hurt is obvious, blatantly so, and it is hard to see him like that so I turn away again, hard to look at this blunt, obvious hurt of his. Hurt that... that I have not gone to... him. Ah. Of course. And how does that make him feel? Crummy... wouldn't it? Useless, maybe even, that someone you have known for so long who you have finally gotten to open up to you has hardly been making an effort on their part... And then there is guilt, thick and wet inside of me. And then there is guilt for my... my actions. I-I did not mean it... I just... I really do like Mier. And... well, one would think that I would stay by the people I have known for so long and yet I haven't... I haven't.

It hurts a little... to think about all of these people, and all of these expectations rearing down upon me, and all of these vivosaurs and all of these problems and all of these things taking me further and further away from the one thing I want, for Dina to live, for Dina to be happy... but if only I knew how to save her. And I keep... breaking. This mortal body of mine tears so easily. My broken foot throbs heartily whenever it simply seems to _feel_ like it, my leg is doing better but there are still times where I turn too abruptly... and now my head. And what is next?

Dinu is right. I never went through this before. All of these... trials, these struggles to do as much as I can to keep her alive—I never fought before, I never came out of something with... wounds. And such aching wounds at that, wounds that keep me up at night, wounds that throb in the back of my head, a constant reminder of what I am doing to myself for her. It is... It is not that I wish to feel... _spoiled_ , or weak, simply I find it hard to adjust to. Something _else_ new.

Weak breath... after weak breath... after weak breath... follow.

It hurts... to be so far away from her. It hurts, this dull pain in my chest... it hurts so much. But to... complain about the pain is... is nothing in comparison to what my poor, beloved girl must be going through... and still here I am, here I am anyways.

I fold in my legs and take them in close to me, wrapping my arms around them, gently resting my chin on my knees... and it is here where I note the change of clothes. I blink warily at the heavy sweater, rather unlike the orange, a more knitted one... red and white and a small strip at the top is yellow. My pants have been replaced with a cleaner, warmer, although cheaper material... and it itches slightly.

"Um... why are my—"

Luk bursts into giggles immediately. "Oh, that's riiiight! I forgot to tell you!" I stare at him, pale-faced, as he waves me off and goes, "Yeaaaah, so your head was like suuper bloody and it got all over the sweater, so we had to get that sucker off of you, y'know, wash it off and stuff. And your coat beneath it was kinda beaten, so that too... and well, your pants were a sad sight to behold."

"S-Someone undressed me," I mumble, my voice cold, "someone undressed me in order to—"

"Well, yeaaah! Pfff..." He snorts. "But it's not like we changed your undergarments or anything. Heck, that undershirt's still on, too, the nice white one. It was under enough layers that it wasn't stained." O-Oh. Well. "Besides, why are you upset?" Luk... not that tone of voice—"It's good practice! Don't you know that?" A part of me feels that I would be making a very... elementary mistake if I asked him what practice this was good for.

He tells me anyways. Oh, _Luk._

"You gotta get used to it! One of these days, it'll be _Dina_ who—"

" _Luk_ ," I mutter and he silences himself, giggling softly. And we are quiet, then, after my outburst and his laughter. The chamber is soft and silent and... warm.

And when my friend is quiet and turns back toward me... he intakes softly. "Why are you smiling all of a sudden, Rupert? That's... a little uncalled for, uh, isn't it?" And he is quiet like that as my face heats and I feel it too, the little smile...

"You said one day... like you expect her to be alive then. In... the future." I look away shyly. "Of course, had you ever not thought of that, you would have taken Dinu's side earlier, instead of she being the only one who thought we should... um." I swallow. "But you... you think so too. You think she will... she will be..." Safe. Dina will... be _safe_.

"Heh." Luk is smiling again, if but slightly. "Yeah. As... As jealous as it makes me, she's the one that saved your life. And you're doing... _literally_ everything you can think of for her. That's some determination there. And... so much passion." He stares at the wall, but his gaze suggests he is looking into another world entirely. Something painful, and yet equally wonderful too. Something hard to fathom, hard to accept, but that does not make it a bad thing. And while I feel a small pinch of guilt in my side for him, I understand that this is how it is now. It is not like... losing Dina has changed me again, has given Luk a chance to be that one.

There are other things that only he can do in this world. He is looking in the... wrong place for it. As much as it might hurt to accept, I think he is beginning to. I mean... how hard is it to spend one's life alone as he has all except for the quiet, suffering boy you are assigned to serve, the boy near your age who is not all that different from you, to spend the majority of your life trying to change him only to watch as someone else does that with not even half the time and effort you put into it?

But I think he is learning to accept it. That is good.

Softly, I remind him. "You can still be the first to make Dinu truly smile."

And softly, he reminds me, "Oh, gosh, there are better things to do with my life," and he giggles in between his words. "That girl's a stone." And then he whispers, somehow exemplifying it: " _That girl's a freaking stone._ "

"Heh. She does smile sometimes," I reassure him, if but slightly.

"But not really?"

"No." I shake my head. "But not really." She not smiles out of satisfaction, but smirks out of spite. Oh, Dinu... but maybe one day. Though her words come back to me from earlier: _Don't you go expecting_ me _to change._ The scoff on her face, sharp, sure. She sleeps so soundly beside me, and when I look upon her there is but a halo of pale peace on her face, a little warm glow. Funny how quickly the gentle facade snaps once she awakens, eyes hateful, lip curled.

There are other things. Things only Luk can do. It is... simply not myself he can manage them with, I want to... say. How... um... off-putting is causes me to feel is of no use in comparison to the simple fact that he does not... agree with me, like how I feel with some others. But is that not the strange thing? As for all I know, that could change one day...

 _...lllloo? ..eee...llllllooo...?_

We stop. "D-Did you hear that?" I whisper, my voice raspy. Luk grabs my shoulder as he turns and he locks it there tightly as he peers out the window and... and he keeps staring, and searching, and searching through that window but whatever it is we heard, the window does not reveal its whereabouts. "Outside, it must be somewhere else outside..."

He jumps to his feet and I start to follow after when he tosses his hand back at me and says, "Rupert, come on, you've done enough lately! Go sit and rest for once! I-I got this!" And he jogs off down the hall, the _fump fump fumping_ of his feet slapping the wood reassuring me that I cannot catch up to his pace. I listen, eyes hesitantly watching the bedroom door creak inward and outward from Luk's passing as the entrance opens up with a pitch of light, then slams shut, and then there are voices—I hear Pauleen—and another pitch of light, a slam, and there is... there is something in his hands.

I start back and it takes me a moment to realize I am almost on top of my unconscious cousin so nervously I scoot forward again, feet rocking nervously back and forth below me once I let them swing. Between bouts of nerves I look up to watch as Luk and the creature he is holding and Pauleen come closer. From the other room, Pippy ducks a slender brown head out and his feet go _pitter-patter_ on the wood as he follows, Sunny sticking her head out and coming soon after. Curious.

For a second I wonder if Pippy might recognize the black-scaled bundle, but before that I realize I do, that I know this... girl. And why is—why is she here _now_? What... brought her here? Why she and not Trikko? And... goodness, where is Trikko anyways, or the rest of them for that matter? But I try to silence my questions as Luk hastily hands me the small krypto, mumbling, "She kept saying your name, after hello, so, uhhh..." and there is that.

Reyna begins to warm in my grasp. I gently let her spill onto my lap and watch as the shimmering red eyes creep open, and though she is staring at the wall she mumbles, _Rupert... ahh, is that you?_ When I confirm, she uses the little telepathic bond to spin in place and face me. _Oh, good. That took a lot longer than I expected it to... hooooooohhhh..._ A little shudder trickles down her spine. _Where is this cabin? Why are you in a cabin? And what happened to the castle? My goodness, what did everyone do?_

My heart has started pounding so hard I hardly hear her. I remember, then, I remember that she was not here, she was somewhere else entirely and for all I know she... she may have something to tell me about... Dina. This is—This is something, and I miss all of her questions as I realize this, and it is almost too much to bear, this thought of... this... this _hope_ , this undeniable hope that weights me with each thought of it, each little desperate hope, for what happens now? I-I might be putting too much into one little krypto... but she knows Dina, she knows her. She was not here.

 _Reyna, I—_ She jolts at my rough whisper— _Reyna, where have... where have you been? What have_ you _been doing and where is everyone else?_

It almost hurts too much to think, this hope, this belief, maybe, maybe, _maybe._ Those red orbs unknowingly search for mine, and she manages one deep long breath. _I asked you first, but I'm remembering that you don't know much about what's been going on with her, so I might as well start._ She pauses, gruff and quiet voice lingering, as I try to level my breathing. _We were in... a whole other plane entirely. Almost like a different... dimension. Um... that's funny—when we entered, we lost almost all memory... but I regained them when I came back. Mmh..._ She shakes her head gruffly. _Rupert..._

She is gentle when she says this. _Rupert, she doesn't remember you._

I'm not sure what hits me first: the fact that Reyna most certainly has seen _her_ or that... that...  
I wrap a palm around my face, cupping my head... my breaths are little hiccups of feeling...

 _Sorry, that was a bad time to bring it up._ I shake my head, silently beg for her to go on. _Um... so, like... we're in another place. Dina's... trapped there. We followed her, but we... we were intruders, so we couldn't stay forever. I'm the... I'm the first to get rejected. The others will... show up soon._ One haggard breath after the other. I hadn't realized how tired she was. _She doesn't remember you, though. We can tell there's something wrong, we all know she's having trouble, but... but she knows something's missing and I think it's killing her._

Dina...

Reyna nervously laughs. _It's... It's like she had this_ purpose _in her life, this_ reason _she wanted to live... and then someone ripped it right out of her chest. And now it's gone. And... Dina's a very fragile girl..._

 _She shouldn't be alone,_ I whisper. _She should_ not _be... alone._ If there is anything I know about her... it is easiest for her to lose hope without someone else with her. Without someone else to combat her negative feelings, she gives into them, and when she gives into them she loses sight of herself. And when she loses sight of herself... she becomes "inferior". My precious girl... thinks herself inferior.

Torn... fought that emotion for such a long time... I am beginning to understand... what a battle he put up daily for something like that. It is how he is... he protects her, gentle and meek Dina. Protects her from herself just by being _him_ self. And she... she should not be alone in that little void, whatever that bloody Zoazoa did with her... But Reyna said—

 _You are suggesting that she_ will _be on her own soon? H-How soon? That cannot—That cannot be..._ I press my lips together, staring off ahead, my arms surprisingly tight around the krypto. She is solid, and she is nervous, a little, by my confrontation.

 _No, I'm not suggesting._ Reyna huffs. _I know this. Trikko came up with it, and Trikko knows... well, he knows more than most. But his reasoning is that we're basically pathogens because we're intruders and he's right and here I am anyways! So it looks like despite anything you say, that's going to happen, okay!_ Breath after breath after haggard breath... _It just is now! N-Not exactly something we can stop!_

I look away. _Zoazoa... Um, Reyna... there must be something we can do about that girl... before... before Dina is..._

She snorts. _Believe me. I know. Ulh, Dina's such an idiot... no. No, you're not correcting me; she is. She's destroying herself with all her nonsense. Hhh..._ She shakes her head slowly in the edge of my vision. _But..._ And then she sighs. _I don't know what to say. I don't think there's any getting back to her... I'm, uh, I'm sorry. She's... stuck there, wherever Zoazoa put her. It's... um, it's something else entirely._

And then I release. And then my stomach sinks... and I tip my head back and... it is hard to think. It is hard to—hard to—ahh—hard to breathe... hard to... hear. There are voices, snapped to attention by something, perhaps myself, I think I hear my name swirling, little chunks of it betwixt words, nothing tangible to grasp, though, nothing at all to hold... I feel my fingers lock against something, tightening, but what I am unsure of... Breathe, breathe, I try to remind myself, softly gasping, breathe, breathe...

Elation has addled with despair, and the sickening conglomeration is a sight bereaving to behold. I should... I should be _happy_ because I know she is alright; I should be _torn_ because she is... losing her battle. And here I am, here Reyna is, and soon the others will be here and then she will be all, all, _all_ alone.

I can't... do this.

A voice is in my head, a hurting voice, a pained voice, a joyous voice, a hateful voice, it changes with the seconds ticking by, stones of sounds pounding on my skull. I-I don't know how to feel, I don't even know what to do and here I am... here I am, absolutely _powerless_ so far as I know, and she is... she is... What kind of a person am I if I cannot keep the one I care about most _safe_... _happy_..? If I cannot manage something as important to me as that... if I cannot even _see_ her these days... Oh, what am I? What kind of a... a thing am I?

It hurts, is all. It hurts to feel this weak, to be unable to manage the one thing you spent all of your life waiting for. I need to... need to...

It is not until later, I am not sure how long, that I come out of my head and realize I have been running. And for how long I cannot imagine, just that the immediate impact of the cold forces me to pause and take in my surroundings for a... moment. I breathe heavily, sinking into the earth, my hands against the snow in front of me, head tilted down. Jutting tree shadows cross my figure, in front, in back, aside, cutting a small fortress around me in wispy black spires. The forest again... Breathing again, breathing hard... softer, softer... until I can pull myself from my daze.

This is... hard. Oh... this is really... bloody hard. Being away from her is hard; having to fight for her is hard; trying to do my best and failing anyways is so... hard. I swallow slowly, pulling my chilled fingers against my head, breathing again, quietly, quietly. As I move, my pale skin is lanced by the rippling shadows of the pines... It dawns on me just how dark it is outdoors. It must... be late. Rather late; evening has passed. The chill of the night is creeping upon me.

How long have I been out here? H-How long was I running? And was I aimless or have I stayed in the same direction for all of this time? How... far away am I... from everyone else? A-Are they out looking for me; have they given up already? Oh. A weak smile grips my face as I recall that this is not the first time I pushed it all away and attempted escape. Yet here I am again...

It is hard. Very hard. But giving into my feelings like this gets me nowhere closer... I-I need to stop. I remember... Dina ran off once. When she learned that Zoazoa was inside of her, when this all became a much bigger, much deadlier truth than we were expecting. She couldn't handle it and she ran and hid somewhere by herself for some time. Tessa... Tessa was the one who found her. Brought her back. She felt bad for leaving me, but she told me she was scared, and then she thought if she was gone she would not impose on me or something, she was unsure, but she tried not to avoid her feelings like that much more. Besides... she grew too tired to do much of anything not long after.

Gently, I ease my way up to standing. "A-Ahh—" I press my palm against my mouth as I stand... my foot throbbing thickly. "Oh... I must have hurt it earlier... W-Well, only to be expected after what I did." Running for what must have been hours on end prior to my collapse... I ease myself back, little step by little step, and determine that while further battered, my foot is not all that worse than how it felt earlier. So I did not subject it to nearly as much damage... ah, thank goodness. Really, though... running on this foot? Why do I... make so many... stupid decisions so easily?

I shake my head and the little smile returns. A sad smile, my chin tiled down toward myself... "No... this will not..." With some effort, I manage to lift my head if but slightly. The weight that presses upon me is lingering, but if I continue I am sure it will haze off.

"Heh..." I shake my head, staring out into the horizon. As I work my way through the thickset forest, more shadows dart along my vision, and the longer I go, the later it gets, the less my vision is, the less the light shines. There is a small moon hiding behind one of these trees... but no matter my length, I do not manage to find it. That is alright. There are many pinpricks of stars in the sky... that should be enough. Only I stand out, other than the sheen of snow beneath me; the trees are big gray soldiers on all ends, and no matter where I turn there is another to take the last's place. Their roots muddy my footsteps, and sometimes I trip in the snow. My body is beginning to tire...

I remember what Gyntis told me, about self-destructing again... and he was right. Ah—He was right. My cheeks heat. I did it again. I lost focus on my life and could handle it no longer. But I... I-I have to keep going, I have to keep going, deep breaths, pushing further, as the longer I go, the closer I get... the closer I get to who it is I search for.

"Dina," I whisper, to no one except myself, "would you be disappointed... if you saw me now? Would you still recognize the boy with the cold, regal air about him, the one who only—albeit hesitantly—took down his barriers for you? The one who stands here today, his left foot broken, his cheeks... frozen with little tear tracks, his feelings all that guide him in this storm?" My lip twists. "Would you turn away from me... and refute me? A-Ah..." No, I need to stop that. I am hurting myself now. I will not know what she thinks until I see her again... so I need to keep doing my best until then.

But I cannot help myself, and the thought escapes me with ease: or would you be proud?

Oh, the things I am never going to admit to her after I find her again... pff, I can't even imagine what she would think if she saw me now... Surprise, surely. In all honesty, I surprise myself each day with some of the decisions I make. Although... that does not make them all very bad.

I never thought... I would befriend another person. I never thought I had it in me, really.

Dina was the exception when I managed to with her. That was how I saw it. Not... that she was merely one of many to... to come.

Of course, to continually escape their clutches is not exactly how I should be seen, or how I should see _them_ for that matter. No... not really. Better... Better than nothing, though.

Oh, what will Luk think when he sees me again..? For a moment I pause, staring at the night sky weakly, biting at my lip. He was so furious the last time... he acted purely on spite and slapped me, even, he was so... upset. I-I... I don't want to be hurt again. I know he gave into his emotions, and he apologized later... but still. Th-Though maybe I deserve it after what I keep...

Finally the trees begin to thin, little gaps between roots and colossal trunks, leaves in every which way... finally the sky peeks out further, and further, until what meets me is naught but the crisp air and the cool night lights. The chill is tugging at me, at my scantily-clad feet—the only protection some trailing bandages one one heel. And each step I take does throb... and I think there are... tears in my eyes again... but it is easier not to focus on it, to try and pull forward without thinking too much on how much it hurts. Then I... Then I can keep going. Because as much as it hurts, there are things in my life that are worth going through this... so long as I do not give into my pain.

When you love someone... you don't let go. I... at least... refuse to. And so I continue. And on... and on, and on I go. E-Even when it hurts enough I need to stop and rest.

I sit and sag into the snowy ground for some time, head tipped toward the night.

It's pretty. The stars, the sky. When I lived in that mansion with my father, before I met Dina, before I had enough motivation in my life to finally break free of his grip... I did not see the sky all that much. The mansion he built at the bottom of a cliff, a cliff large enough that for one to peer through a window on the bottom floor—where my room lied—I could hardly see it if at all.

Settling against the hardships, my eyes half-closed... I smile slightly.

How far have I come..? Hah... I don't know. Far. How about... far.

When I raise again, my body has softened, and my next step is not as small as the last one was.

My tire is catching up to me... but I... but I cannot... stop. Not now. I need to go back to the others... I need to stop running away. I need to... I need to keep going. Come on, come on...

So it feels a little like a lie when I step out and catch sight of it: my heart squeezes, my pace quickens, seeing the lights in the house shining, the cabin just as I remember it, just the... just the same. Th-Though why it would be any different is the greater question... b-but I cannot care, I go faster, faster—and then I trip and I slide and I decide that walking quickly is almost as good as running. So I go on as that, panting, panting, eyes thick, once I finally put my hands on the worn, wooden door, and I gasp in little breaths. My fingers... I feel them shaking. Bumping against the wood and jumping away of their own volition... and then I sink to the floor of the porch and I stay there for some time.

When I enter, I go to the chamber to the right first. There is a small glow emanating from the fireplace in the corner I had not even noticed until now... and with thick, hitched breaths I sit in a chair, leaning against the table somewhat... slowly relaxing to the warmth.

 _Tmp, tmp, tmp..._

I jolt, turning to catch the gaze of—oh...

He looks away though, quickly so, and so do I. Silence takes hold of the little chamber, the fireplace the single bearer of what warmth remains. And we stay like that, him standing, I sitting, my breaths that had finally deepened beginning to shallow out again. Suddenly I flinch: my head falls into my hands and before I know it before I sense it coming before anything they fall like rotted fruit from a tree, hot thick tears, and I manage to choke out the words before I lose myself to it: "I-I am sorry... I am sorry..."

"A-Ah! Rupert, ch-chill! Oh my gosh!" The footsteps buckle against wood as he darts over to me and quickly takes seating on the chair beside me. I try to glimpse him, to meet his hazel eyes in between my tears but... he is too bleary to make out... I swallow and try to say something else but... but the words stick in my throat, and besides, I cannot even say what I wanted to tell him, anything, I guess, anything that would fill in this monstrous gap...

When I manage to swipe another glimpse of him, there is a tiny half-smile tugging his lip, and a gentle sympathy cradles his gaze. "Hey—hey... It's okay. Um... I-I know. You're going through a lot. We're all... going through a lot. And, uh... everyone's got different ways of coping with it." The way his voice lowers... the eyes look away... "B-But it's just hard on all of... on all of us right now. I get it. Um. You're... You're in a lot of pain, Rupert. And I'm... sorry. F-For scaring you. Heh... I-I-I never realized y-you were so... so... so _fragile_ , Rupert. I guess I should've seen it coming..."

"I-It is... I..." But it is so hard to speak with sorrow in my mouth... "S-Sor—"

"It's okay," he whispers, "s-seriously, it's okay, Rupert. It's okay... I-I mean it." He watches me for a moment. Just quietly. And then he sighs. "I'm... I'm sorry too." So quietly I still linger on his voice when he leans in and I feel Luk gently, hesitant, embrace me.

I jolt back at it but I try—I try not to push him back again. Slowly... I lower my hands—a-and I wipe the tears against my pants. Luk scoots closer on his chair until he nearly topples it, so I try and lessen his reach, scoot in a little more myself, and I... let him hug me. "You have... no need to be sorry," I mutter. "You only tried to reach out, again and again... only for me to hurt you... how many times has it been now? E-Excuse my indecency, but I have lost count since when we were children..." Sobs threaten to break through my words... but I manage to hold them inside. Oh, how pathetic I feel...

"Heheh. I lost count too... th-though I mean, it's not like I was counting them in the first place! Heh..." He shakes his head. The grin has subdued what nerves have compelled him so far as of now. "You're shy, and you... you're not good with people reaching out like I do. I'm all... forceful and stuff. Heh... It's fine, it's fine..."

"You have quite the perseverance..." My breathing has settled again... the room is a lot warmer than it was minutes ago...

Luk is bashful now, eyes turned to the ground. "Y-Yeah, maybe a little. Ehh..." He bites at his lip. "Ahh... it feels kinda weird to... like... you're not even, like, flinching or anything now... S-Sorry, I'm trying to get over all this, hah..."

"Um... sorry, um..." I may as well ask him... "Luk, are you... are you mad?"

The little smile returns. "No... not really. You gotta stop freaking me out like that, though! Geez..." He rests his head by mine then... his breath is soft. "I... I think I understand a little now. Like... You run away, Rupert, I'm noticing that now... You never had a chance to escape that mansion, huh? So when you finally were able to run from that... it became your escape thing, I guess. It felt better to get away from it for you. But... But even though you run away when you get upset... you come back, too. You've always come back. S-So uh, thanks."

Somehow the way he ends it comes off as a little lame in comparison to the pulsating emotion behind it.

"Thank you for... n-not being mad," I mumble. "I-It means a lot to me. I was... I was scared." I blush. "I'm sorry."

Luk releases his grip, slowly pulling back from me. The hazel eyes dart from my face to my eyes to my posture, to my twitching hands and numb feet, my pressing back into myself, the flustered red cheeks. "Huh. We share a complicated relationship, huh?" And he says it in such a soft, childish voice that I burst into a sudden, weak laugh.

"That is one way to put it..." He sees my lingering gaze and grins.

"Isn't it?" And he is quiet with this, softer than with anything else I think he has ever told me. So... gentle. And careful.

When I look up again, I whisper, "But that does not make it a bad relationship, does it? You are... an old friend of mine, Luk, and... while that makes some things harder to understand and accept... l-like change... I like to think I know you well." Which gives me... comfort. Because I have known him for so long. Y-Yes.

That is it... that is it. I release a breath, and relief overcomes me.

I want to be... his friend. I-I do. As much as I struggle with notion and as much as I will again... I want to remember this. Luk is... a good person, a very... very good person. The kind of person I want to be around.

"Heh..." He looks away from me again, as if it... hard... to bear the little smile for much longer. "Yeah, that. Yeah..." Little sigh. "Man, I understand how Pauleen feels now... hahaaaah..."

"L-Luk? What do you mean by that?"

He ignores me. "But... I really like Todd. He lets me mess with him, and sometimes he doesn't even realize it, which is... the funniest thing."

He is smiling, though. That is good.

Turning back to me, Luk suddenly pauses and covers his mouth, a great yawn penetrating the chamber. "Aaah... it's late. We should go to bed. Mmm... everyone's else already pretty much settled... even, like, Pippy and the others... and Camri... and Reyna's out too, like your cousin." He yawns again, turning away. "Mm... bed it is."

"Heh..." Luk... what a silly boy.

"Wanna sleep together?"

I gently swat at him. "You know this stands no chance of occurring."

He groans, loud and childish. "Fiiine. Be that way!" And then he swats back at me, and he flubs an attempt at a wink.

But he is right, on all accounts, so I get up after him and carefully—him waiting for my limping foot—we make our way to the bedchambers.

 **This was a little different x3 and it's a little shorter than some of the other chapters, though I don't know if anyone can tell that besides my word counter thing xD**


	17. Da: Afraid but Unafraid

**Oh that's right Christmas was yesterday, haha oops... Merry late Christmas! And uh, Merry early/late/on-time Christmas to anyone who happens to be reading this in the future! Yeah, I was writing on Christmas yesterday... is that weird? That's probably a little weird, whY AM WRITE ON CHRISTMAS WHEN GET POKEMON MOON? I don't know it's how I am I guess... I'm a huge writer xD ahh...**

 **Well, it's back to Dina yet again! That last Rupy one was good for more Luk, oh my gosh Luk he's so much more complex than I was expecting he'd get xD Sometimes I swear my own writing surprises me...**

 **But anyways, Dina!**

 **Dina: ovo; nnnng...**

 **Trikko: -Aw, it'll be okay-**

 **Dina: nnn...**

 **Torn: -Why the hell are you giving her empty promises?-**

 **Trikko: -I'm not.-**

 **Torn: -What the hell?-**

 **Trikko: -I'm reassuring her that no matter what happens, it -will- be alright. Because I believe in her.-**

 **Torn: -...what?-**

 **Trikko: sigh -I'm not explaining it any simpler than that, else I'll feel like a fool.-**

 **Torn: …. -OHHHHHHHH YOU MEAN LIKE, YOU MEAN YOU'RE NOT RELYING ON THE FACTS-**

 **Trikko: -shut up-**

 **Torn: -SHIT MAN YOU HAVE A HEART?-**

 **Trikko: -I said shut up-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 17: Afraid but Unafraid

 _Dina_

 _Are you ever afraid?_ I whisper, watching as my three remaining vivosaurs bicker quietly in their circle. I sit, legs folded against my chest, arms around them, my chin resting upon my knees, and I watch them... and I am quiet. Their voices mostly lie at a dull roar, but sometimes one escalates which causes one of the others to until there is an extrapolation of noise, and they are so loud... and there is something else there too, something else that I did not think vivosaurs felt very much of. Because they are so... so strong. And big. And independent... they do not seem to require much assistance; even Reyna could manage heartily so on her own, because she could feel when someone stepped closer and she could still swing and strike hard.

But that is not right now. They do not hear me, as the noise rises again, another wave crashing down on us. Nyra cannot keep her eyes fixated and continues to blink, overly so, the violet orbs focusing in and out of the two below her. She flits, hovers, and catches herself in the air currents above: restlessness feeds off of her.

The other two, while confined to the ground in front of me, are not much better. Torn constantly yells, his tail lashing, his tongue stinging the air, his eyes wavering here and there... he is hissing somewhere beneath this, and I worry what sort of flame he might conjure, accidentally or no, if he cannot find himself tame soon. And Trikko, my dear, stout Trikko, for I think the first time I have ever seen it, he cannot sit still. It is almost funny: little tics in his side, twitching, grunting. While the most tame of the three, even he cannot take hold of whatever weight they have placed upon themselves.

 _Have you ever been afraid before?_ Even when the words leave my head, I know they will not hear those either. But I like trying. It... It makes me feel a little more capable... Nnh... I uncurl one of my balled hands and use my little pointer finger to make lines in the ash-like particles. The sheen of blue Torn reflects off of him bounces and bounces on all of the tiny, tiny pieces of earth, and I sink in where I touch it... and it is hard to make much of anything, it is so soft... aw...

Aladee is gone too. Nobody has seen him since Reyna disappeared; Nyra mentioned hearing his cry, once, twice, but she never found him. So now we are left with three.

 _I-It is okay to be afraid, you know..._ I pout at the earth. _I have been afraid before... it is not a happy feeling, but it is okay. Fear is scary but fear is okay too. I-I guess that is obvious... since it is fear. B-But did fear not keep ancient vivosaurs alive? R-Right..? I-It is okay..._

No. They are not listening to anyone but... themselves. Not even each other, at that: Torn screams so he can be heard and as much as Nyra tries she cannot deter herself from her upcoming promise and Trikko mutters something under his breath I am not sure anyone was even supposed to hear.

Yes. They must be scared.

Oh... I-It is okay... Gently I lift myself to my feet, brushing off the dust as it scatters. My tail, when I flick it, sends a small puff of the dark stuff to the air, and I watch it disperse, coughing quietly. I know they said not to let me worry but... b-but it is fine. I-I get it. I am... I am going to be the last one here soon... A-As scary as that is, I... accept it, t-too. Because I... have to. Because that is going to happen soon... As nice as it is to pretend, as easy as it would be to drape false promises over my head, that does not help either...

Gently I tug on Torn. _What are you still talking about?_

He jolts. _D-Dammit, Dina, we told you to go sit over there! We're just—We're just trying to figure shit out, nothing you need to listen to or anything..! Ghhh! Don't worry about it! Go back!_ The amethyst eyes sharpen; his blue scales pucker beneath my touch.

 _B-But... but..._ He hisses as I try to show it to him.

 _It doesn't matter! You don't need to... ugh, go relax or something! We'll figure things out for you!_

From behind us, there is a sigh. _Torn... you know as well as any of us that we're getting nowhere, and I'm pretty sure you can't just_ yell _loud enough to force Dina out of the conversation. Or this situation, for that matter. We're... stuck._ Trikko gently shakes his head and moves over toward us. His blue gaze is wavering.

They must be wondering who is next, too. Reyna, Aladee... there is no particular order, nothing so simple as when they entered do they disappear. If... If it was most destructive to least, I am sure Reyna would have been last, if anything, and Torn... Torn would not be here now, h-he is so loud... heh. How... scary is that? And then they will be back in a world they can hardly remember, and who knows where the others are? Where... Where I am? W-Well, I-I guess that Zoazoa is not... me. But she is... in me right now.

What is she doing? Is she... living? Is she happy? That is why she possessed me, right? To be... happy. O-Or maybe it was just survival instinct, but why would one want to live if the only life to live would be a miserable one? Like... Like her last one. Is she trying again? Is she... she is... is...

 _Ughghhhhhh, I hate this so fucking much!_

Trikko lets out a long, slow sigh. His eyes... lighten. _Torn. How many times have you told us this? You'd think by now that you would accept and move on from the fact. Yes. You hate this. Okay. Now let's move on and try to make it better, yes? So that you don't have to continually spew your hatred at us._

 _Sh-Shut up._ And there Torn hisses, his eyes blaring. _Trikko... D-Dammit, that's the thing! What the hell is left for us to do? Fucking looks like all we have left is to sit and wait for it all to be over now!_ He is breathing heavily. His eyes dart about our little bubble of light, and he twitches, restless, anxious. _You fuckin' tell me, huh?! We see a shit-ton of memories, okay? What the hell are we supposed to do with these if we're just gonna go back to our merry-as-hell lives after this? That stupid... bitch! Ugh! There's gotta be some way to... to like, fuck her over! You know what I'm saying, right?_

It is a flicker. A tiny, useless, nearly imperceptible flicker. I think Trikko is smiling.

 _Yes, Torn. I know exactly what you're saying. Heh. I_ never _would've thought of that... hmmm..._ His gaze rolls toward the ceiling, and the way his face scrunches suggests he is looking for said ceiling. I look up too but all that is left is the misty, hazy black reverting to blank midnight. _But there's our next question, yes? How do we, excuse me, 'screw her over', Torn? Please enlighten me._ Why is he smiling so... much?

 _I dunno, kill her?_ Torn scowls. _Naw, shit, then Dina's dead and... oh that's right, they're sharing bodies! Holy shit. Fucking little... hhhhhgh! Dina, how to we turn you into one of us so that you get spat out too? Wait._ He pauses, glaring at the listless face of my tricera. _What the fuck are we doing, exactly?_

Trikko snorts, shaking his head. _I'm searching for a way out. What about you?_ When confronted by the vengeful silence, he chortles. _That's what I thought. Torn, use that brain of yours and it should be obvious what I'm doing, but you can continue to whine if you feel like it. I know what to ask to get you working._ The warmth, however present it is, molds into more of a thoughtful expression. He rests his soft, blue eyes above.

And like that, she comes down. She is breathing hard too, deeply, weakly. _What is it?_

 _If killing is out of the question, then how do we coax Zoazoa out of Dina's body? Hmmm... I do recall that Zongazonga... what was it? Ah, he couldn't hold his form inside of a vessel and had to crawl out of it when he was angered. Of course, when this happened for us, Rupert's soul wasn't inside of the body but he'd been pushed out, very unlike Zoazoa's slowly crushing of you... if that's what this is. Hmm. Well, I think I know what this calls for._

 _U-Uh? Y-You do?_ Nyra stares weakly at him, shining purple eyes humungous in her face.

He smiles thinly. _Why yes. We need a bait._

Silence.

 _FUCK YOU, MAN! I AM NOT! YOU CAN'T FUCKING MAKE ME DO THAT SHIT! I-I-I FFFUCKING REFUSE, THAT'S... I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU'RE GONNA MAKE ME DO AND TO HELL IF I CARE ABOUT IT, THAT'S FUCKING NASTY!_

 _Torn, you insolent idiot, I haven't even told you what my idea is._ As if hurt, my tricera shifts his gaze to the ground, allowing a heavy shadow to overcast his features. _That's rude of you, don't you think? You should at least give me a chance before you sell me out like that. I can't believe you, my friend, I really can't._ And strangely, somehow, by one way or another... it works.

 _HHHHHHHGHHHHHHHHHHH! TRIKKO I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I FUCKING FUCKING HATE YOU, STOP MAKING MY HEART HURT, DAMMITTTTTTTT! HHGGGH!_ At first he is yelling, and then he loses his voice and throws it all into as pathetic of a whimper as he can manage, and everyone can hear the desperation in his voice, how hard he tries to strike back.

A little grin flips the image of my torn tricera upside-down. _Well, moving on then._ He talks on top of the scream that ensues _. As I was saying, I'm thinking that once we leave this realm, we should somehow bait the girl into getting out, and what better example than reasoned out by all the cliches?_ It takes a moment for Torn to divulge this, as he is out of air and his coughs are loud, galumphing things. _And by the cliches, of course, I reason that we should give our Torn the most suave entrance that Zoazoa is enraptured by him._

We all wait. Torn does not scream. Instead he whispers, _What does 'enraptured' mean?_

 _Heh._ I think Trikko was expecting this answer. _It's a much more pronounced way of saying 'fall in love'._

And then the screaming starts back up. _HYAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! YOU BITCH OF A BEST FRIEND! YOU BACKSTABBING BASTARD! YOU FUCKING... TTTURD! UHHGHH! I KNEW NOT TO TRUST YOU, I FUCKING KNEW YOU'D SELL ME OUT THE FIRST MOMENT YOU GOT IT, I KNEW YOU HATED ME, I KNEWWW IT! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!_

I think there is something else he is trying to say, but his yell is so bad that it all muddies into that alone like a far-reaching target. Little tears form in his eyes as he screams, and screams, and screams, and I think at this point he has forgotten why he is screaming, he is so loud, I-I cannot even think, but he continues anyways, on and on and on until collapse.

And then they hear it. Quiet, tiny, washed away when compared to the earsplitting symphony my Torn provided us with... but then it is so quiet after his yell that my small laugh is amplified, and amplified, and eventually I cover my mouth with my hands, cheeks hot.

 _Guys..._ A strange... gentleness... has wavered upon Trikko. _That's what we should be doing. That right there. Not... fighting. Not giving into our stress. I mean... It's going to happen, and none of us are happy about this... but that doesn't mean we let off there, right? That's... what I think we should be doing. Right there._ He bashfully raises his foreleg in my direction and is quick to put it back down, gaze averted.

Nyra shudders softly. She breathes, slowly, slowly, head lowered, and she glances back at Trikko and she manages a little smile. _I never thought the day would come where I'd hear you say something as sweet as that, Trikko. Heh... Where did that even come from?_

 _His ass,_ mutters Torn, face in the ashes, _what an asshole. Hnnnn..._

She laughs softly, mirrored by me. _Oh, Torn, you poor thing._ His mood brightens significantly after that, but he does not move his head much out of his arms, which he holds tightly around himself. Oh, is he sulking? Aw, Torn...

 _I-I do not think you are an... an... ummm..._ But I think Trikko knows what I means. He smiles softly... dips his head in thanks.

Consequently, Torn jerks toward his best friend, finally lifting his head, and—with a sneeze—cries, _YOU BITCH! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO OUR DINA?! YOU'RE CORRUPTING HER TO YOUR VILE... UH, REALLY REALLY VILE WAYS! LOOK AT THAT INNOCENT FACE! TOMORROW, WHO KNOWS WHAT STATE IT'LL BE IN!_

 _Heh._ Trikko snorts. _You have quite the melodramatic air, Torn, I must admit. But what does all that fluff give you when all you have left are blundering words kept idle by that... ah, accentuation of yours?_ There is a moment in which he takes to laugh, turning back. _You amuse me, dimetro. I'll give you that._

 _My goodness! What in the world are the two of you talking about?_ While laughter marks her words, Nyra has cocked her head down at the two other vivosaurs. _Sometimes I swear it's like you're both talking in a whole different language of yours! Like you're the only ones left in a... complete other dimen... dimension._ As if inadvertently, she glimpses my side and her face twists into a little moue, apology dimming her.

 _Tomorrow..._ Catching my whisper, they all turn. _Tomorrow... my face... my face will..._ I crouch upon the earth. They watch as I scoop a small handful of ashes, then, locking eyes with each of them, slowly rub them into my cheeks. _It will look like this! B-But scarier!_ And then I jump to my feet only to see Nyra cover her face with her wing, giggling softly.

Torn eyes me, a smirk toying his lip. _Mmhmm._ Giggle. _Dina, what the hell are you? Five?_

 _Torn, what a hypocritical question._ He jolts as my tricera edges upon him. _Does the five-year-old always ask the ones around him if they resemble his own actions?_ Trikko raises lidded eyes. His smug face is... silly.

 _F-Fuck you, man! I'm not_ five _! Y-You know that! I'm like over a mmmillion years old cuz of fossilization and shit!_

Trikko gently tilts a bemused grin. _Hmmhm? Actions speak louder than words, my young dimetro. And I must say your actions highly suggest the age you are most attuned toward._

He hisses in turn. _S-Stop talking all fuckin' fancy! Just say I act five! Gehhhhhhh!_

 _Oh, but that's no fun._ Softly giggling, my tricera watches as purple stains blotch the otherwise crisp composition of shiny blue scales. Torn, as if feeling the change, scratches absently at one of his cheeks, but he does not switch his annoyance from the one in front of him.

 _Heheh._ Nyra jabs in. She lands on the back of my tricera to look down on the dimetro, his fan twitching beneath all of the eyes. _Torn, if I told you the act made you cuter, I'm guessing you'd use it more, now wouldn't you?_ I think it is I who gasps when his cheeks go even redder; he cannot hold eye contact and shoulders it over to the earth. _Hahaha! Oh, Torn! It's so fun to toy with you now that I know how you feel!_ She pauses then. _That's probably not the right way to go about it. Ah... but it's so silly! Oh, look at you, that cute, angry face! You poor thing!_

Torn slams his jaws shut and turns around, sitting in a little ball. _Waaah, you guys are all meaaan..._ And he stays there, pouting, scowling. In a sudden pang of guilt I scurry after him, only then remembering the soot on my face, hurriedly wetting my fingers, scraping it off. When I trip and land in front of him, he laughs quietly. _Dammit, Dina. I wasn't talking about you..._ He is not one to resist, though, when I gently wrap my arms around his neck. Quietly... purring, is he? Heh... Torn.

The heat beneath his scales pulsates against mine. I always admired that, the tireless warmth that embodies him, the dimetro and his flashy blue scales, his snarky grin, his barbed tongue... a loud sort of caring that sometimes comes out brash, or vulgar. I take comfort in that... and he is so warm.

And he will be gone soon—

A-Ahh... D-Do not think of that... do not think of that... P-Please, do not think of that, Dina...

He picks up on my curled fingers. _Dina? Awww... what's wrong? C'mon. Go ahead, tell me all about it, cry the fuck out of your little heart and shower me with your tears and stuff._ Quietly. And then he whispers, _Y'know... like usual._ And I think there is a smile nestled in his words, a bashful one, a warm one.

 _But you already know what it is about..._

 _Ahh, that's fine. I'll try not to get all worked up about it this time. But, uhhh, no promises, cuz I'm really fucking good at getting worked up about things. I'll... I'll try though. You can tell me._

 _O-Okay..._ And he is gentle when I rest against him, breathing carelessly, thick and heavy and weak and light. Trikko curls up by him, and Nyra swoops to the other ground. When I take in her stare... there is a little ball of energy bouncing in there, a bit of knotted worry and stress... but she stays, even so. She stays. _Um... I do not want to lose you. I-I am scared of being all alone... o-of what happens, now that I know what her past was like. I am... scared of the dark, t-t-too, of being in the dark all by myself again.. And with all these scary memories in my head..._ At least when I came here... at least then I did not remember what was painful, what was nice. It was all dark... and that was okay.

But here I am shaking. Shaking for the things that lie in wait for me once I am alone, for the monsters in my head to spin stories like never before, to trick me into treacherous places... to hurt me once more. I-I do not want to be hurt again... is that so wrong to wish? But it... it is okay. It... is okay.

 _Hey..._ Swallowing his fire, Torn goes soft. My head against his muzzle, those shining amethyst eyes look unto me. _I know. It's spooky. I mean, that's why we got all... stupid, earlier._ Nervous, he glances back at his best friend, who offers a demure smile. Torn mirrors it, sucking in a breath. _We're a bunch of idiots. Even you, Trikko._ To which he nods. _I'm, uh, I'm sorry about that. About being stupid, about doing stupid shit like that. And, and—and no apologizing after that!_ My mouth snaps shut. _Dammit, no apologizing! We're all stuck like this, which is scary. We just gotta figure out how to get through with it._

I drop my eyes. _Y-Yeah._ My heart thumps, loudly, in my chest, like a stone. Gently I cup my fingers around my chest where it throbs. Torn pats my forehead with his muzzle. Nyra, from behind him, nods gently toward me. Her green scales shimmer so brightly...

 _Alright_. He coughs. _That... thaaat wasn't so bad, was it? Hooh... gah, I hope so. I'm tired now._ He giggles, shaking his head. _Damn, I'm tired. I don't know how the hell he does it._

 _He?_ Curious, Nyra lifts her head. Her lip has screwed up, bunching by her cheek. Trikko is shaking his head.

With a blush, my dimetro mutters, _Yeah... him._ I feel his head nose toward me. _The guy who's gotten her this far. Y'know. The one who rudely broke her heart and then leaped out her window of memory. Damn, he means a lot to you, doesn't he?_ With my nod, he sighs. _I don't know how he does it. This girl is... well. She's our Dina, huh? And she is fucking tiring sometimes, haha... Seriously, though, you can be. Don't... apologize for that, either. You just are._ Little smile when I look back up at him. He has shifted somewhat, against his friends. _Don't look down so much. Trikko, what did you say about that?_

He smiles too. _I believe I once told her it's rude not to meet someone else's eye. You know, back when that boy was still an acquaintance more than anything else. A little trick to get her to look at him more._ He shifts but slightly. _It's bad for you, though. Really. It is. So you should, ah... do that a little less, okay?_

 _Heh... okay._ He nods with his bit of approval. I turn back to Nyra, sweet Nyra... who cannot quite meet my eye. _Um... N-Nyra?_ Still she is quiet, still she is pondering, eyes everywhere but with me. _U-Um..._ Oh. Oh...

If I say it... If I say it... If I accept this is about to happen...

My fingers go to my head. I let them stay there. Deep breaths... D-Deep breaths... It... somehow, it almost does not feel real. I do not know how, but... like if I open my eyes, everyone will still be there, like if I open my eyes, I can find Todd again, I can see _him_ , I can put my feet on an unshakable world, one that will not leave me to slip between another dimension entirely... Everything about this space feels... unreal.

 _I-I will miss you,_ I mumble. _N-Nyra._ And I swallow, my throat thick. It hurts. It... hurts. I-I do not like saying goodbye... But did I ever have a chance to before? Ah—Have I ever had a chance to before, i-in my life? At least here I can—I can gently touch her wing and—and try to hug her—and tell her... tell her I will miss her, and please do not be so afraid. It is okay. It is okay...

Between little breaths, I look back up at her, and I try to smile for her, just to steel myself one last time, to show her I can handle this, I can take this, one more time, I-I can do this. I am not sure what I am trying to do b-but if I look like I know what I am doing, maybe I can figure that out later... and glancing back at my taut figure, Nyra shakes her head gently, and she caresses my cheek. _Oh dear Dina..._ I think she can tell what I am trying to do... _Don't let go of that. Um, and... don't forget. Don't... forget. Don't stop._

My lip has been bitten at I am not sure how many times now, running a bit on the edge with a frame of little uneven marks... but I watch, and I watch, and I keep watching, head threatening to collapse, body threatening to cease, mind threatening to cloud, as my Nyra shrinks and dissolve into naught but air again. A finger lifts, fiddles with her empty space. But she is gone now, and there is nothing here any longer. Not even a swatch of warmth, twirling in her space, has been left unaltered.

 _Just like that_ , mutters Trikko, Torn grunting weakly. _Just like that. That's... That's all it takes. Five seconds max and she's gone... and it hit her so... quickly. Goodness, that's so..._ He sighs. _Well. You heard her, Dina. Don't forget. Don't stop._ But she never elaborated.

 _Stop what?_

Quiet. Trikko murmurs into the chilly air, _I guess that's up to you to decide. But... no, I don't trust you enough to decide what she means, so I'm going to say it right now for you: don't stop... believing, or trying, something along those lines._

 _Faithing?_

 _Torn, that's not a word._ Soft laugh.

He scowls in turn. _Dammit. I'm just trying to be helpful over here._ Growl. _Hrrr... what about, uhhh, I like belief and all but if she just sits here with that sort of fluff in her brain she's gonna fucking rot without doing anything. Something more... what's it... sustaining? That stuff? I... I think..?_

 _Mm._ Trikko does not deter and does not debunk. _Yeah, I see what you mean..._ He eyes me, tittering under his breath. _How do we get_ this _girl passionate, though? Look at that dopey expression. She's hardly even focused. Though that could also account for the state of Nyra and the others, I'm pretty sure I've seen it before._

I blush. _U-Um, I-I am focused..!_ I try to strengthen myself again and widen my eyes.

 _Dina, that's not doing you any favors,_ though the side of his maw does quirk back at me.

 _O-Oh... um..._ But I... I... I-I mean... What should I be doing..? How should I be, um, feeling, and what should I be trying to do? In this situation, Trikko searches for a solution through what is given: he asks others and observes, um, thoroughly, and he tries to point out every last variable until he can take action. Torn... gets mad. And burns things. And yells a lot. Nyra grows anxious. Aladee... I think Aladee took it in stride; so far as I could tell, he did not seem incapacitated at the shadows and the darkness... and Reyna hardly altered from her usual, surly self. But I think she was worried somewhere inside. Where... is she now? Where is Aladee now? A-And what will Nyra do next, outside of me?

Scary... to think about... what Zoazoa might do when she sees them again. Wh-What anyone might do, really... all of these free vivosaurs running rampant who-knows-where... I am worried too.

 _What are you going to do... when you leave?_ I look up at my vivosaurs, their weak gazes, their subconscious fears, stresses, thoughts...

Torn grunts. _I don't know. Kill someone, maybe._ I gasp. _Hahahh... I think I'm joking, but honestly, I'm a little fucking freaked out about this. Like...we're next. Where the—What the hell happens next, though? I guess we're... out there. But who the hell do we go to? Do we... can we just... awwww, shit, I hate the real world. It's being all screwy with my head. I hate not knowing anything! Dammit! I hate this hell, I hate what's happening, I... urrhhhh..._ Raspy breaths slowly level out. _Sorry, Trikko... I can't fucking help it._ His eyes tilt back at the ground.

 _Ah—no. Torn, it's fine. I understand how you feel. It's frustrating, this... empty... black box of null. Ulh... The unknown is a dangerous weapon indeed, yes? Dangerous weapon... indeed. And here our Zoa is, easily turning the unknown against us, easily warping our minds... But I think we can all agree that as long as there is no new information, there's close to nothing left we have to fend for ourselves. Ahh... but there must be something, right? That's what bothers me. The unknown... doesn't amount to simply nothing. Hmmm..._ He frowns, turning back to Torn, who looks up back. _Torn? One of our few pieces to go by is those memories. They... changed our little black box of null into a theatrical sort. May I ask your thoughts on that?_

And there he is. With nothing left, he gambles for the thoughts of... others. Oh, Trikko. _Damn, I don't know. Memories... man, that shit's messed up. It hurts Dina, hurts my fuckin' pride, hurts_ your _fuckin' pride, hurts everyone's except maybe not Reyna's, and those... monsters kept herding us around. Like, what the hell? And... as much as she's getting used to it... Dina, you've still got those weird cuts just, like, chilling on you, when ours healed right up._

 _Because I... I am a p-piece of this place now? It... It does not affect you._

Trikko nods, demure smile on his lip. _Hmm... that's right. We're 'intruders', more or less, Torn. Intruders... But Dina's supposed to be here. And they're, well, they're supposed to do something to her, that much is plain to be seen. But the question, really, is... why. We've puzzled out that our Zoa's keeping this last shred of Dina locked down deep inside of her, and it would make sense that her intention is to kill her so that this is her body now, just..._ _just like..._

He goes silent, eyes glassy.

Torn jolts. _T-T-Trikko, Trikko please don't—_

 _Ah._ He shakes his head gruffly. _My apologies. I didn't mean to scare you. I just thought of something, but the moment it came to my mind I didn't want to say it. Perhaps it's an inkling of superstition, but even so... I just feel like if I admit this could be happening, then it will happen, and, uhhh... that's that. Right? And I don't want to... think about that happening._ Sigh. _But it's likely. So, I was thinking... this is just like the other vessels, you know, the ones Zongazonga took over, how he snapped their sense of being or whatever, for most, didn't even push them out of the body. I do wonder why later, back in Caliosteo, he hadn't murdered Joe and... and someone else too, I think it was your boy, Dina, but even so... hmm, maybe they were both temporary. But either way... you're... yes. Dina, you're supposed to die._

 _Y-Yes?_ I squeak, because we all feel the rest of his words hanging in the air above us. I am not dead. M-Maybe I am supposed to be but... but I am not dead.

My tricera lowers his head. The light from Torn reflects off of his scales, illuminates his dark eyes, the shadows creeping along his horned head expelled, himself attempting to strengthen as he ensures something else about my imprisonment. _Well that's exactly it, Dina: you're not. As close as you've come, my goodness... you're not dead. Dina, you're not... dead. A good thing at that, believe me! But that's the thing, oh, that's the thing!_ A sudden grin spreads thickly, warmly, upon him. _I think she's afraid to kill you._

 _Afraid,_ I whisper.

 _Maybe fear isn't all bad, hmm? You're not gone... and I infer she's afraid of letting you finally die. You wounds won't heal, and by all means you're trapped here... but here you are still. With us. Although I hate to admit the fact that we'll be just as present as Nyra soon enough... we still_ were _here, and this isn't everything. Dina... let me say that again._

He gently steps over toward me, his stout legs whispering _shhih, shihh_ as they swerve through the sands. His head he rests on top of mine, and then he says it again.

 _This is not everything, Dina. This is not the last of it._ I feel more than hear his soft chortle, his jaw gently thumping above. _There's something else out there, if you only had the heart to go looking. I... I know you can find it, okay? I absolutely know it. You're not strong like most people, believe me, but I like to think there's a sort of persistence in you, one that's nearly unbreakable. It makes me wonder what you'll be like soon, whenever all the pieces of your boy come together again. But... don't go forgetting us, either, Dina._

Deep breath. I feel that too. He is so... so warm, my Trikko, so very warm.

 _We all love you, okay? Even Reyna. I know she doesn't say it, but that's her issue, not yours. So don't forget. Heh. I think that's what Nyra meant when she said it._

Wait. I reach for him and wrap my arms around his neck and I hardly make it halfway, if even, and he is warm and gently breathing on me and _don't forget_ is in my head _don't forget don't forget_ and I feel it in my heart this great tug and I look at him and I see tears and he sees tears and I whisper, _Trikko... T-Trikko! Trikko, no! No, no, no! No!_

And he smiles quietly, and nuzzles my head.

 _Torn, you don't forget either._

And just like that, I lose grip of him, and he is gone when I open my wet eyes again.

A surge of feeling threatens to rip me open, wide open, as I fall to my knees and cover my head and it throbs, it throbs hard, and I think I reopened a scar or something somewhere and I feel a small stream of blood welling on my side and it meets little thick tears that reluctantly let go of my eyelashes, streaming, tumbling, falling, falling. I gasp for breath, trying, crying, my head achingly heavy on top of me, my thoughts empty, my heart weak, and it is so hard to see anything, this unearthly mass of blue light...

 _DAMMIT!_ I hear, but I think it is weaker than how loud it actually is. _DAMMIT, TRIKKO!_

It helps me waken, helps me pull myself to my feet again, but I can only stagger so far before I fall again, weakly, hands fists against the earth.

Breathe... breathe... breathe...

Hiccups pierce my lungs as I breathe, breathe, breathe, hands cupped around my head, shaking, breathe, breathe, and I try and I try again and I manage and it comes out gasping, wet, a soiled little thing, but it comes out and I cough, lifting my head out of deep waters.

I can... I can... c-come on... Up, up... Shaking... my fingers are red and sticky, somewhere, I think I cut myself there...

Somehow or another, I manage to my feet. While vague and misty, the blue light still lays about me, and I continue on toward it, closer, until I find my poor shaken dimetro with his head hanging, his thoughts scrambling for reason, for anything, because his best friend, his _unruly, surly, prideful bitch of a best friend_ has left him behind without even saying a word, without even telling him it was about to happen. And now it is only us, only Torn and me... and that is one away from null.

 _T-Torn,_ I mumble, tightly hugging him, resting my head against his thick warmth... and he begins to calm. Choppy breaths lighten, soften, his tail uncurling and lying by his side, the fan on his back beginning to straighten, bleary eyes focusing in on my bloodied face.

And he tells me, _Dina_ , and he sighs, and he goes, _what did you do this time, you poor fucking idiot?_

 _He-Heheh..._ I wipe at the tears as they tumble and find in my palm a handful of... of snot. _E-Eww..._ I wipe it off quickly, whimpering. _I-I... I do not know, Torrn... I-I think I reopened some of the wounds... nnnnng..._ And I hide my head in his heat and he laughs quietly, a warm rumble in my ear.

 _Try to be more careful, would ya? There's only one of us left and I only have so long before I'm joining our fucking bitch of a tricera._

 _Eheh... Torn, he is not a female! He is a tricera!_

My dimetro growls playfully. _Dammit, did you pick that up from him, Dina? Hahaha... Of course he taught it to you, huh? Keep me in line when he's not around. Whatever. He's still a bitch. He can't fucking change that one._ Catching my questionable glance, he giggles. _Because he is! He didn't even say it was happening, that... turd! Ugh! I'm running out of strong curse words, I need to fucking lighten up or something, it's too... natural now. Gaaah._

 _Heh... I do not mind._

 _Do you? I mean, I know that... I know I have a pretty fucki—uh... a pretty, uh, dirty language. I never asked you, huh? But you're not the kind of person to bring that shit—I mean—stuff up! Ugh, Dina, you're killing me! How the hell do you do that with a compliment? Damn, girl!_

I smile, looking up to him. _No. I really do not mind very much... I know that you picked up the language from the Huricans, because... they used it, and you used it against them, and it never really went away... and I try not to think about that very much, heh, but... it is okay. It is how you speak. And... you would be different, if it was not how you speak. And, um, I like how you are. And... Trikko does too. And Nyra, and Aladee and Reyna and..._

 _Alright, aaalright, I get it._ He snorts. _Thanks though._

Quiet sigh. It has been... a long time, huh? Some time now, that we have been here... And we have come a long way since then. And... And Trikko thinks there is more to come but, but he also thinks there is a chance. There is a chance I can... I can... It is a little hard to think of him, with this lump in my throat, with this feeling I may never see him again... but I guess that is motivation too. A tiny trickle of motivation, a stream down in my heart, compelling me, pleading me, telling me that I have to go. I have to try.

That is something, right? I nurse the little stream inside of me, and I keep it there, and I let it continue to tear at me, thicker, thicker, with the thoughts of Reyna and Aladee and Nyra, and Torn will be gone soon too...

When I feel his paw gently press my cheek. _Hey, Dina. You keep crying, huh? Awww, poor baby, haha..._

When I look up, though, I do not see a muzzle and a snout and a big smiling blue face. No, for a second, I swear, that first second, I—I feel—fingers—gently caressing my cheek—and eyes—the color of... of the sun—smiling back at me—and a pale face and—soft, white hair—and a little grin... and when I blink it is all but gone but for pieces, little pieces of him.

I think Torn feels it too. He releases, eyes strengthening, whispers, _Him?_

And what can I do but nod? _He is so... he is so... k-kind, I think._ A blush flourishes, dancing across my cheeks. _And his smile is so small but so... so sweet. Warm... yellow eyes. And he was a little taller than me, but not a lot taller, but he was taller than Todd... and I-I like the way he said m-my name!_ So soft and careful, as if I am... something precious, something to be protected. Someone... special, to him. Someone who makes him smile, who makes him happy to be... alive.

I almost cannot handle it, how warm my heart gets thinking about him. All but a name, now, I have all but a name. And... And then I can whisper it back to myself, and wonder if he likes my voice too.

Soft and cold... but so... so... so sweet. I-I love his voice... I love... the little fragments of words I remember, the things he told me...

Torn, ever supportive, grins. _How the hell could he not like your voice? It's all fuckin' tiny and cute and stuff! If he doesn't love it, he's lying! Or deaf! Or sssomething! And he can go to hell right now if he's gonna lie like that to your face and means this much to you! Heh... ahhhh... I missed that smile, dammit. I mean, you don't always smile, but when you do, it's all like...it's all nice and stuff, I don't fucking know, I can't describe it._

 _Th-Thank you,_ I whisper. It is hard to focus with that warm, sweet voice in my head... the little smile... it makes me start to giggle all over again, o-oh my goodness...

 _Yeah, don't mention it. Trikko's just stupid, that's why he says I'm_ biased _or whatever, fucking retard. Stupid fucking retard, haaah! I'm both elated and disgusted at the fact that he's not here! I get to say what I want about him and he can't make one of his fucking snide remarks back... but I miss him, right? Heh. Well. I can't talk. I might be there soon too, huh? But... you heard him, right?_ I turn back toward him. _You heard the crazy shit he was spewing about, like, 'there's more' and 'don't forget' and holy fuck, am I gonna turn into that when I have to leave? Get all... insane and stuff? Ulhhhh._ He shudders, but I think he is still playing a little bit.

A little bit. The hardness of his words gloss over us again.

I mumble, _Yes, he mentioned that. I... I wonder what will happen when you l-leave... heh. If... what there is that is more will reveal... D-Do you think something else will happen soon, i-if Zoazoa is... too scared to kill me o-on her own? Will I... What will happen? I think maybe her memories were supposed to... k-kill me. With the... zombiesaurs._

Torn scowls. _Yeah, but they didn't. And we're gonna keep it that way as much as we fucking can. As in not dead, I mean. Dammit. You're not... not dying. And besides, the memories are all fucking over now... so you're—you're okay. But um... if anything spooky happens later... run, okay? Just run. Don't fight it. You never were a fighter. Run and run and try to win them over or something, uh, maybe, but I know you'll go down if you try to fight it. You just... don't have that will... on your own._ The little scowl squiggles on his maw and it manages into a smile: a small smile, but a very real one.

 _O-Okay..!_ When I remember, and I lose my nerve. _T-Torn... please tell me when... when, um, when it starts to happen to you, please. I do not... I-I do not want it to be... so..._ like Trikko. I-I do not want to be caught so nearly unaware again. That was... that hurt a-a lot more.

 _Heh. Don't worry. I'll let you know, Dina. And, um, I'm... sorry in advance. But. But I can promise you this! That shithole Trikko's getting his fuckin' ass kicked for that show of his! Dammit, Trikko, that's not how emotions work! Ugggggh, what a bitch!_

I giggle, turning back to him. _Torrrrn... Trikko is not as receptive as we are, eheheh... you know that. He is... different, when it comes to emotions. But he is still kind too..._

He shakes his head. _Yeah, well. Honest to fuck, Dina, what don't you call kind? Like... dammit, seriously though: Trikko, me, the guy you're in love with, Reyna, Zoazoa. Who's next? The Huricans?_ He catches my wince and grunts. _Aaaah, sorry, morbid joke was a bad idea. Heh... heh._ And he sighs at that. _Trikko was right, though. This is what we're supposed to be doing. We've reached a dead end, I guess, but... I'm still here, aren't I? I'm still here for you. So I... I have to do something. And this is something I can do. For you._

I look away again. _Torn..._

And we are quiet then, we are both simply quiet. The air, swirling and thick with the color of my Torn, pulsates about us, and it is warm with his heat, and it is quiet like him. Only Torn and me again, just like in the beginning... when it was dark until his light. His light... was always what came first. Outside of my memories that I lost, outside of the first pit where I lost everything, it was only him, and only me. The Huricans, Todd, t-torture, and years slowly passing and passing in succession until we reached Caliosteo, we met Joe, we defeated Zongazonga, I... f-fell in love, I made friends... I found safety. A place where I want to stay. And we found the others too. Reyna, and Nyra, and everyone. But now we are back here again, yes? Back at the... beginning. I like that. I like that more than an ending. When we begin again, and he is... gone... I wonder where I will be, but I am not afraid of what is to come. Because beginnings mean I... I am not going far away. Before the end, I still have time to come back.

That is... what I think, anyways.

 _Torn?_ He starts at the feeling in my voice. _Torn..? Um... I-I need to ask you something... i-important. Please... bear with me as I try to say it._

He nuzzles my head but otherwise there is nothing. It is more than I wanted to ask for.

 _Torn... um, when you leave..._ I take in a breath, a small one, and I let it out, whispering, _please wait for me._

I think I hear him sniffle.

 _You bet I will. Don't go anywhere now, you fucking hear me? Don't get any ideas once we leave._ And he pauses. _Shit. Shit, dammit, I'm turning into one of them. DON'T FORGET, DONT' YOU FUCKING, FUCKING EVER FUCKING FORGET, DINA!_ And I think he is crying. _DON'T FORGET, DON'T FORGET, OKAY? DON'T FORGET!_ And I think... he is bawling, bawling like a child, abandoned, hurting, do not leave me, do not forget me, do not go, do not go, not really... please.

So I do not go. And I do not forget... and I do not leave, n-no, certainly no.

But I think Torn is about to. But not really, but also very really. He will... He will... And then I am crying too, now are I not? My fingers I curl into my head and I wipe at the tears, hurriedly, quickly, and I pull my arms around Torn as he whispers, _Oh... that's why Trikko didn't say it. N-No wonder._ And he looks deep into me, deep into the very core of my being and he goes, _Dina. I'm scared. D-Dammit. I'm really scared. I'm scared of leaving you here. I-I'm scared of meeting Zoazoa. I'm scared of going back._ He splutters. _D-DAMMIT, I'M REALLY FUCKING SCARED!_

And I hold him. And I whisper, _Me too,_ and I do not let go, and I do not forget, and I am not leaving him, not my precious Torn. I look back into him, and I tighten my grip and I watch as he passes, gently, through me, upward, upward, and the yearning in those amethyst eyes must be one of the hardest things I have ever looked into, but I do not look away, I cannot.

 _Oh._ Recognition sputters in his gaze. _Oh... that's his name._ But he looks at me and he screws his jaw into a grin. _I'm not telling you his name, though. Trikko and Nyra didn't, and I'm not either._

He smiles, though. Gently.

 _You have to find that for yourself._ And quietly, finally, _Don't forget_ , and then my beloved dimetro is gone, and so is the light.

 **Heh. Dina's... I think she's looking up a little? Eheh, at least, I like to think so.**

 **That's... a promise, if you will. Rupert's name. I know very well that everyone knows who Dina's looking for, and I'm not holding back pieces of him for "suspense", haha. It's for Dina. And now she has everything that makes him but a name.**

 **And Torn's like YOU CAN'T LEARN IT TILL YOU COME BACK. A promise, I like to think, heheh.**

 **And that makes Dina want to keep it, surely.**


	18. Bandits of Yore

**Oh man, special chapter! it's in the third person too! Woah, why the third person xD**

 **haha, I did this in TSFF too, I had this chapter that focused on the BB Brigade from Champions, more on what Dina and the others weren't paying attention to this time around and what the lovely BareBones children were up to, haha... and in this one, it's the BB Bandits since Dino and Jkonna haven't even spent one chapter in their home, uh, island xD**

 **This'll be fun**

 **Just don't take some of the characters seriously**

 **Don't take Tiffany seriously and don't think too hard about her, she wasn't meant for either  
(although... she only showed up for a little bit after I wrote the chapter so I guess it doesn't matter...)**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 18: Bandits of Yore

 _BB_

"Oh no, where did he go this time..."

Sighing, she pulls her long, pale fingers through long strands of turquoise hair, tying the top of it into a small hair band, and she goes on. The lab coat he gave her, the one she stitched some touches of pink upon, flutters about her. She's not the scientist and she never was, but she lives with him now and dang if his lab coats aren't so soft they're intoxicating. And he let her have this one. So it's not like she stole it or anything. Would it be considered stealing if it was from the person you lived with anyway? You know... the, uh, the person you planned on... marrying one day?

Thinking about it always makes her feel a little woozy. Vivian can't really get used to the fact that he shared her feelings. It's been months and they're still together—if not closer—sure, but that's... not the same thing. Whatever. He's a nice guy.

And he's only gotten more and more scatterbrained the longer those two idiot kids have spent out in the wilderness of who-even-knows-where.

"Doug? Ugh..." No, he appears not to be upstairs. Vivian allows a moment to sulk, rubbing a spot under a turquoise eye, before continuing through the hallway in the second floor of the Fossil Center. There's the game room, and some of the staff girls' personal belongings crashed in there like a hurricane was around: some romance anime shows stacked up a leaning and partly-toppled tower, overflowing bags of makeup, clothes, undergarments. But who has to clean up when Doug Diggins doesn't even freaking bother to do anything about it?

And nobody listens to Vivian. They just kind of look at her funny.

Of course he's nervous. Of course he's worried. He practically considered the one girl his daughter, right? And he... he'd adopted her too. Which, sure, meant she was basically Vivian's daughter too, but give her a moment to get used to it, it's still kind of weird, the transition. For so long she'd been under the reign—her two old friends alongside her—of Bartholomew Bullwort. It was a complicated jig. She doesn't always think about that, either... it's a little embarrassing, the things she did to try and disrupt the island. The things that dratted Dino did to mess them up anyways.

And then he so casually shows up with his father, real and in the flesh, who's apparently the king of a dinosaur-human species living in space?

And his father has _wings_? And apparently _he's_ gonna grow some too?

Yeah, there's a lot of things she doesn't worry her head thinking about these days. It tends to stick, tends to make her feel kind of weird. Remembering. Besides, she has other things to worry about now: the staff girls who never listen, learning about whatever the heck it is that Doug does with his life, and she was cleaning up after the messes she and Snivels and Rex had made for a short while but it'd turned out most of said messes had already fixed themselves up if not in minimal requirements of repair so, well, they were let off the hook nice and easy.

Funny, right? What a weird life she has... and poor Bullwort too, guy'd gone through a lot before he reached that low of his. Went a little crazy too—he's getting better now, but that doesn't simply erase the fact that he'd gotten kinda close to losing his mind.

But that's what grief does to some people. That's what happens to some people. Bartholomew, for all of his muscles and his rather gigantic size, hadn't the heart to muscle out of his demise.

That's okay though. He's getting better now, and in the end he didn't actually cause that much of a riot—well except for that one time he tried to revive that one ancient—but otherwise it's all fine.

Vivian's eyes slowly draw for the window as clomps her way down the stairs, into the lobby. To outside. People stay in groups now. The careless—almost reckless—and yet soothing vibe of Vivosaur Island hasn't been burned out, not quite, but a veil of safety is beginning to enclose upon them. And where the heck are all those ancients coming from, anyways? Most of them trudge in very nearly the same direction that Dino and Jkonna and that other guy—Raptin—went, back when they left, like... there's something over there. Goodness, what is it with his sister? It's like the whole world's out to get them now.

Turning toward the booth, she tries a smile at the blonde manning it. "Hello, Wendy. Have you seen Doug? He's... seemed to wander off somewhere again." Emphasizing _again._ Sighing. "I swear, he can't keep himself still, always something going on in that head of his and before he knows it he might wander off a cliff or something, if he wasn't mostly confined to these walls." Her voice isn't all that loud, but it's warm enough. Uh, probably.

"Mm?" Wendy's eyes flit up from the entrance. "Oh, yes, the Doctor went outside, the last I saw of him. I tried to get him to wait for someone else to show up at the very least, and I even offered going with him, that idiot, but he just sort of darted off then..."

Wendy's the hardest one. She's like a final exam: fail once and it's all over. If you manage to get on her bad side, you don't exactly leave it, doesn't matter what you try. Vivian discovered it's easiest to antagonize Doug and keep everything else brief and she's a little more sociable. Sort of. "Thanks, I'll go looking." Also, she has this inferiority complex and she complains about feeling unappreciated when she's had a little too much to drink, which, well, isn't uncommon.

And if she doesn't stay on Wendy's good side, well, there's no telling what she'll say to Doug about who knows what. Wendy has... _fun_ , with her bad side, how about that.

Vivian makes her way toward the glass doors when she remembers—oh right—she shouldn't go blundering outside without someone else with her. Just to be safe. As assuring as it is to have vivosaurs with one, apparently Jkonna had a little spill with that one stupid ancient Bullwort uprooted—the frigi—the one who almost destroyed the entire island—the one who's currently residing in Dino's pocket—no, she doesn't know why he thought that a good idea, but there it is. But anyways, they figured now it's possible for the nasty things to crawl into your skull and... take over, something? Ulh. Nasty things. She'd rather not.

Oh, and her Doug's out there somewhere, scatterbrain he is, for all they know about to waltz into some unsightly predicament. Where did the others live again? They come and visit the Center often but she feels pretty confident they don't actually live here... oh, right, the Hotel, probably. Quickly she steps out the door and makes her way over there, eyes to the sky, to the right, to the left as she goes, just to be safe.

Rosie's been fighting an awful lot, hasn't she? How may had she dispelled again? She started keeping tallies on her arm with something, last Vivian saw it was up to at least ten. And why in the world was Rosetta Richmond so happily putting herself in harm's way, again and again and again? Hah. Probably made some girly promise to Dino, that lovesick idiot.

Oh. Wait. She's not the only lovesick idiot.

Vivian scowls, crunching her fingers into fists. Shoving open the large wooden doors of the hotel—thankfully—their her boys are in the lobby, chatting up with some neighbor.

Well. The neighborly chat can wait.

"Snivels! Rex!" No, they don't even look her way. Ugh. "SNIVELS, REX, GET OVER HERE!" Oh that works nicely. She coughs softly into her sleeve and looks up to face the nervous and somewhat flustered faces of her old friends. "Hey. Doug's gone somewhere again and I can't go out there alone, you know, for safety reasons, so I need the two of you to come with me."

It's first the lanky blonde with the overly long nose to grin weakly. His mutters, voice soft and always with that strange warmth, "Uhhh-huh, uhh-huh. You're sure he won't show up in the next few seconds? C'mon, isn't this normal for him? I mean, I don't mind that much, but it's a bit redundant, that's all. Think you can stop worrying about it."

Rex, the portly fluffy nomadistinian he is, just growls something.

However Vivian and Snivels are both fluent in the language so they catch the contempt matched only by a yielding worry. "I know, Rex, I'm a little tired of it too, but he keeps galumphing like some idiot megalo out there, and I don't want him to get hurt, and I'm sure you wouldn't want that either, yes? Besides... he's not even at the Center. Just sort of... went outside and poof."

"Psssh." Snivels smirks. "You don't get tired of anything, Viv. You're in looove." And he starts laughing at that, jerk friend he is.

Her cheeks flush. "S-Stop that, you know you're gonna make me get all..." She huffs. "Well come on, are we going or not? I'm worried he's gone a little far and who knows where he is now... Oh, he needs to write things down or something! Too many thoughts jumbled up in that big head of his!"

"Reminds me of you."

"Shut up, Snivels! I don't do that!"

A soft guffaw comes out of the nomadistinian.

"You shut up too! I don't!"

Snivels rolls his eyes. "Yeah, whatever makes you happy. You get pretty scatterbrained like that though... sometimes. Like, remember when we had to hide McJunker's tools and you darted off muttering about something like where to assign the Bandits and what tools to take and where to take them and something about that one mine cart... hah, you come back and we've buried them!"

Vivian sighs. "Whatever. At least I don't go right into danger. I swear, if he's not careful... and we already have a precarious situation! Ughhh..." She scowls, causing her friends to take a little step back. Well, no use, they need to go before he really does do something tremendously stupid. It wouldn't be the first time. For crying out loud, back when Dynal still thought humans were monsters for whatever awful reason, the guy nearly got himself sent back to the millions of years ago when people didn't even exist yet... How does that even work? Whatever. It doesn't matter right now.

With her swerve back to the door, Snivels goes back to cast some apologetic glance at the guy they were talking to and they tromp after her. He's humming something under his breath and Rex is humming something else and it almost sounds nice but they keep stepping on each other's notes so it doesn't quite work out, not really, and Vivian sighs as they work their way to the front of the resort, back to where Travers—Snivels's brother—works the boat, opens up dig sites.

And two more staff girls of Doug's help situate it. "Ahh, Beth, Sue, please tell me you know where Doug went this time!"

"Hmmm?" Beth, the brunette in front of her, curiously lifts her head from the mascara she's probably reapplying. Then with a disgusted snort, she goes back to what she was doing and Vivian's lost her. Whatever, that girl's difficult. She wasn't expecting much from her in the first place.

So to the redhead it is. Sue's nervously wrapped her arms around herself, eyes peeking up at the sky above. When, curious, Vivian turns to look, she swallows and notes the fat gray clouds. "U-Umm, Vivian..." Sue kicks her feet at the dirt, tightening her grip on herself. "U-Ummmm... I-I think Diggins went to, went to the one dig site, um..." Yes, the one dig site, _perfect_. "The uh the.. the one with the boring name, wh-what was it..."

Another snort, and Beth steps in to save the poor thing. "Secret Island. He was prattling on and on about some old memory having to do with the dinaurians or... something like that, I don't know." Meaning Beth's probably wrong on that count. "But I know he went to Secret Island. I mean, it goes through us."

There are moments where it's almost tangible, how much Beth cares about something. But then a roll of the tide and it all goes under. Vivian however does note her scoot closer to the frightened Sue, the capping of the mascara wand, the gently putting of a hand next to her.

"Weirdos," mutters Snivels.

"Alright, _yeah_ , go ahead and ruin the damn moment, why don't you," jabs Beth.

"Sure, I guess I will, you freaking weird girl!"

They go on like that for what feels like ages. _I never liked you anyways_ here and _go shove that up your butt_ there and who can forget the timeless old _what an idiot, ugh, Sue, don't talk to him, you'll catch his cooties_ , and how old are they now? Well not _five_ , and they have a good leg on _twenty_ too. Not to mention that Rex has a fair share of incredibly dirty things to add, but the two of them can tell he's merely utilizing this because nobody else knows what he's saying.

Back when they were the Bandits, Rex did that to a lot of people, especially when nobody was around. Made him feel powerful or some dumb false delicacy like that.

 _wwwwWWWWWEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR_

Well there's the boat. Thank goodness. Somebody tosses some final snide remark and the three board, Snivels offering a short greeting to his brother. "Secret Island, Travers," he adds, and off they go in search of their idiot doctor.

Of course, it'd be nice to think that someone would force the guy to stay by now with other people, left on the boat or by his staff girls, someone would think _by now_ there'd have to be someone who'd stop him... well, Travers was always a pushover not to mention Beth is Beth and Sue is Sue. _What_ a cavalry. They need someone better suited for the task of keeping this guy out of that world in his head before he did something just like this time.

"Hmm?" Vivian's face heats as she realizes she was probably muttering some of this aloud. Snivels grins back at her. "Yeah, well, he already has an overmuch girlfriend, so I think he'll be fine."

She doesn't have a snide remark to that. Sort of hangs her head, letting her hair shield it from all of her friends' intruding gazes. How embarrassing.

Stupidly kind friends...

As they situate themselves in Travers's white vessel, she picking at the soft seating, one of Vivian's hands—the free one—tucks into her pocket and fingers a cool medal, a red rim surrounding it. With a breath, she asks, _Dreary? I'm not an overmuch... girlfriend... am I? I-I'm not that bad or anything, um, am I?_

Her nychus snorts. _You worry too much._ The small, pink biped is quiet for all but a humming intensity about her, like that of an upcoming wildfire. _I'm sure Doug likes it anyways. He needs someone who's on top of things or he's gonna lose it, I feel. He's already disoriented—reckon he didn't realize how attached he was to those dorky kids before they were gone. And with the ancients and everything... mmh. Stuff's gettin' tense. You know._ She can't help it and pouts at her vivosaur anyways.

Dreary's been around for most everything. Since the beginning, and earlier too. Vivian's other vivosaur, a fluffy pink omias, sits by her, and he goes, _Yes, 'stuff' here is rather getting tense. I do wonder what's next in store for us and whether we'll be ready to intercept it, yes? And Diggins, too. What an overworked idiot._

 _He's not an idiot_ , mutters Vivian. _No—really, my goodness, he's not. He's a scientist, for goodness sake. He studies vivosaurs and the land and tries to keep people from killing each other with said vivosaurs or other notable patterns. He's the one who discovered this forsaken island in the first place... He just has a lot on his mind all the time. Oh, and he gets attached to things too easily._

 _Just like you_ , adds Dreary.

 _Shut up. I think we're arriving soon._ Of course they all know that's her excuse to squeeze out of the conversation and as politely and quickly as she can take her hand out of her pocket, but at least she bothered to give them a warning. The two of them are so... chatty. And sly. And it's annoying to listen to for too long.

Snivels raises his head, pointing back at one of the islands as they pass it. "Hah... isn't that BB Island? Or whatever it was called, Bandit Base, Bartholomew's Brood. Something of the sort. You remember that, Vivian? Back when we helped him disrupt the resort? Funny times, that was."

The said island no longer holds any mark of it resembling the Bandits who once sought it as home. The rubble of their base had collapsed in on itself back when Dino came bumbling on in like the idiot he is, and then he let out his seismo and the seismo, largest vivosaur out there, so easily accidentally caught his tail on something or another. The ending grew rather obvious after that: they all lost of course. Bullwort was taken to jail, Vivian and her friends had to help clean up after what little mess remained of the BB's work... though it was revealed rather early on into it how much of a pity case the Bandits had been.

Oh, Bartholomew. What a poor, poor man.

"Yes, those were... I wouldn't say funny, but they were pretty different." Vivian's nose wrinkles as she flings a hand in the general direction of their old island. "Have you heard anything about what they're gonna do with it?"

Rex shrugs, muttering a quiet growl.

Snivels turns to look back at him. "Yeah, I thought so too. Some of the others were apparently helping clean that dump out at some point. Wonder if they have an idea for it, hmm? But I guess the most important question is if we really _need_ another island for our old BB Base to be turned into, and if so, what."

She offers the two a small glance and continues staring at their old island. They'd lived there for some time, huh? What a weird time it was. Bartholomew with his grief, the ancient who... _hurt_ his betrothed, his brother's contempt over the whole thing, his poor son. "Mm. I wonder. Y'know, this is all off of the top of my head, but wasn't there a whole lot of old bookshelves in the Fighter Stadium? I think they were running out of space for them too. There's an idea, I guess." If nothing else. Not that Vivian's idea is very good at that.

Stump of a tail wagging, Rex barks warmly.

"Really? Where have you seen something like that?"

He barks again, more specifically.

"Oh! Nomadistan, huh?" Vivian nods toward the sky. "Library, they called it? Ah, I remember that now... Wonder if that's what our old dump'll get turned into." And she pauses there, musing. "Psshhh... a _library_. Excuse me, but that sounds so weird it's kind of funny, so out of place when you think about our old purple bodysuits, the bad reputation we got, the way we were treated: 'Oh, what a pity case, those Bartholomew Bullwort Bandits'... hmmn."

Wasn't all that bad, though. She wouldn't have had an excuse to stay with her friends without the Bandits, she supposes. Probably wouldn't know Doug as well, either. Embarrassing as it is to admit, it wouldn't be without that dimwitted Dino—ah, yes, _dimwitted—_ that she'd end up in a relationship with the man she'd had feelings for for what might've been years now. Course, Dino only meant it as a joke, but his joke went a... a long way.

Oh, no, now she's getting all soft...

Finally their boat begins to cascade off into ribbons of waves, slower, slower, tugging against the current and blowing to a halt, bubbles spouting off at the sides of it. What a well-cared-for vehicle; guy's owned it for years and it has yet to lose its glimmer. With an adieu to Snivels's brother, they all get up and step out of the boat, crunching into leaves and mulch and other nasty droppings from nature on the shores of Secret Island. It really is a stupid name. But it _was_ a secret island, for awhile there, so what can you say? Doug was never any good at names anyway.

"Mm. You think we should take out our vivosaurs? I get the feeling Doug could be anywhere... and so could our, ah, let's say 'pursuers', shall we? In case there's any around. And I'm sure old Tubille would appreciate the time out."

Ah, right, his carchar. He knows Dreary and's been around since the beginning too. Not to mention Rex's vivosaurs, his strange mammal and the tortoise. "Maybe? But I think Doug might just be over there." She points out at the conveniently-crashed starship just in front of their eyes. "If anywhere, that seems as good as any other place he'd wander. Besides, what's he gonna find in the jungle?"

"But you know he's not _looking_ for anything, he's just being a big scatterbrain, Viv."

She grimaces. "Yes, well I'm his overmuch girlfriend and I'd like to think I know him best."

"Pff." He shrugs. "Sure." By their side, Rex offers a snide grin in some form of agreement or another—she's not really sure—and they crunch on through the trees and the leaves toward the rusty old ship. Just in case, they pull out their medals and leave their vivosaurs roaming outdoors as guards. Just to be safe. Vivian pats Dreary's flank and nods up to Ominous before moving on. She makes sure to keep up close to her friend and bumps into him once, twice, three times. Nearly trips over Rex.

Another laugh. "Goodness, Viv, you scared or something?

In perfect timing, he steps on a particularly loose metal floorboard and the whole ship goes _CRRRRGH_ , tipping him dramatically to one side until he falls. "Dang! W-Well I can't say I blame you, huh? This is... it's spooky, man! I don't know whether to say your boyfriend's got interesting tastes or he's one of the worst and you need to toss him out!"

"Oh, come on, Sniv," she mutters, elbowing him when she helps him up, "you know the guy. He's borderline harmless." Y-Yeah, Viv and Sniv, shut up. They came up with them back when they were young, like Rosie's age and whatever. Back where they grew up, when they were still little... and, w-well, it stuck.

Trotting on ahead, Rex laughs softly through the corridor—halting immediately when his voice begins to bounce back and forth, the metal flats all tilting, _creeeeeEEEEEeeehh_ to his cry, and then he yelps and starts sprinting, practically on all fours, back to his friends.

"Pff. See, you're not the only one." Vivian's gaze streaks over years' worth of mold, mildew... she sneezes, shaking. "Man, it's creepy in here." She cups her hands around her lips and calls, wincing, DOUG, WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE YOU?"

Silence. He's probably not listening again. She swears the guy's in there though; the hatch was left open when they approached and that's reason enough... Since when did he close the doors? That's why almost all of them in the Center are automatic, the dolt. The few that aren't he runs into. He's a funny guy, her Doug, and he's seriously freaking her out right now, oh... goodness.

"DOOUUUUUUUUG!" Oh, let her try; this is killing her. "COME ON, DOUG! WOULD YOU PLEASE RESPOND?" No, of course not, mocks that voice in the back of her head, he doesn't see a fit reason to as it is. Ulh... She's gonna go crazy with this boy.

Snivels gently grabs her shoulder and she jolts. "Ah, sorry," he mutters, "just trying to get you to stop... before you run into something." A hot blush settles along her cheeks. "Heh. I think he's up ahead, though. Mmh... makes me worried. If he's right there and he hasn't heard us... I mean I swear that guy's got a world of his own up in his brain, but we're getting closer and closer and we've made enough of a racket as it is and he has yet to even twitch."

She swallows. Wipes at a wet cheek. Shut up. "Y-Yeah. I know. That just... oooohf, that just makes me _more_ worried, though. Makes me feel like I need to get there even faster. Doug's smart, and he's pretty clever, and I like to think he's got a strong will... but sometimes I feel like he has trouble remembering all those things, alongside every other worry up in that brain of his. Oh, Doug..." C-Come on, don't lose hope now. Another hallway, another long few seconds of feet slapping hard-packed earth and metal, squeaks, cries of things eaten by rust being moved for what might've been millenia since its last shove, and just up ahead the whole chamber opens up.

Somehow that makes it harder to breathe. All that open space and Vivian's arms fold together in front of her. She lowers her face so that her bangs shadow over... and if but for a moment she has to stop. It's getting hard to keep moving. Rex, sensing, halts and whimpers softly.

"Heh." Another swallow. "Thanks, buddy." Vivian lets her hand rest on his soft, fluffy head; Rex grunts some form of approval. And then Snivels takes her other side, good old Sniv. And then it's a little harder on her heart, these stupid, stupid, _stupidly_ wonderful boys. Her friends... as they have been for however long now.

Of course, should've seen it coming, she and her old blonde pal have always had a bit of a tendency to tell what the other's thinking. "Makes you think of way-back-when, uh? Viv, remember when you and I came to study abroad in Nomadistan? Man... it wasn't even all that far back from our old home, but yet it was at the same time..." He snickers. "Remember when we _dated_?"

"Pff, how could I forget?" She playfully elbows him. "It's how I learned never to kiss you again, _hag_." What old times. "We never were much of a romance, huh. But anyways, other than that"—what idiots they were, growing up—"you remember when we came to Vivosaur, don't you? When we wanted to all go sightseeing... Rex was like, 'guys, let's all go exploring with our lives', even though it's been years and he can't speak Vivaldi for anything. Hahaha... yeah."

Their fluffy friend growls a bit at this, but he's always been all bark. Vivian snorts.

"What a bunch of softies we are." Gently, carefully, she strides ahead again. "We better go yell at my boyfriend for being a doofus. C'mon, boys." And one laughs, the other sighs, and they go on like that.

What a nice thing it is.

And that's about the part where Ominous sticks his gigantic face through a hole he just punched in the freaking starship, nearly decapitating her in the process.

 _GAAAAH! WHAT IN THE WORLD—_ She turns her head to watch as that arrogant, good-for-nothing omias flips his mane and chastises her for yelling. _WELL NEXT TIME DON'T DO THAT WITHOUT WARNING, AND SO CLOSE TO LIVING PEOPLE, YOU IDIOT!_ She doesn't get an apology... though she wasn't really expecting one. What a rude little...

Ominous, after yet another flip of his mane, enlightens her. _Yeah, so we heard something scary, man, so we like had to warn you, and man, they didn't know how to get in, plus the opening's small, so, yeah._ He raises his head to circulate the chamber, as if this solves all of their problems. He gets so close to accidentally sticking his horn into the ceiling and Vivian wishes he'd gone through, the tramp. _Yeah anyways, there's something scary going on_ , like she hadn't heard him the first time. Like she's deaf; no, like _she's_ the idiot.

"Hey—Heeey—Viiiiv—" Snivels quickly caps her shoulder with a hand and when she yanks he keeps her sturdy. "Don't do anything stupid, now; he's trying to be nice... sorta. First thing that came to mind. Anyway, there's, uhhh, 'something scary' ahead, whatever that means, so we best be careful."

She groans into him.

Rex sort of laughs, then his head warily jerks forward, in the direction of—but of _course—_ her boyfriend in question. Sitting on the ground in the midst of the chamber, his head in his hands, mumbling words that probably aren't real to himself, off in his head again probably.

With a huff, Vivian pulls herself together again. " _Right_. As I was doing before your little intrusion, Ominous." She flicks Snivels's hand off from beside her and shuffles forward, forward, her boots making these awful, self-conscious _DURKS_ against the metal every time she takes a step and for all things good and trustworthy her stupid boyfriend won't look up at it, like he doesn't even hear it, like he won't... like he...

Arrgh, deep breaths, deep breaths. Another few steps and she tackles to the ground, wrapping her arms thick around him when a jolt zaps through her entire body, fries her right through, sapping her energy and stealing her thoughts as before she even realizes it she's melting into the ground in front of her, head landing weakly upon Doug's lap, where it stays. Because she can't lift it.

 _What in..._ And it hurts too much to talk. Her body... it's like... it's all... it's like it's, like it's buzzing. A thick, lacerating hum that soaks into her... skin. Makes it hard to think... and she lifts her head but then it just falls, weakly, and she coughs to find her throat, raspy and dried. _What in the world just.. ulhhh..._ Well. Perhaps she's found Ominous's scary thing. Huh.

Scarier than she thought it was gonna be.

Alright, yes she does underestimate her own vivosaurs, but in her defense Ominous earned that low of an expectation: the thing's scared silly by the stupidest things and it's not exactly difficult to distract him. Had Dreary been the one to warn her, well yes—Even Tubille, that old carchar, would've worked fine for her. But... ahh, well, now she pays for it. The _pitter-patter_ of little feet on the metal swims stuck in her head as a pink face replaces the gray scene beyond.

She continues coughing. _What just... D-Dreary, what just..?_ But it's so hard to put it into words, to put anything into words... everything's so... foggy.

 _Hey, uh, don't go blanking out on me now! It's dangerous in here and one blank person—our Doug—is enough!_

Rasping softly, she tries to avert focus to that, to the swimming face of her bright pink nychus, the weak grin, the nervous look, the tittering and staring into a soupy atmosphere that for all she knows is empty... but it very well wasn't empty prior to this. That's why she... why she...

 _Ohhh, dang, I think it's that bird one again. You remember?_

 _Nhhg?_

 _Ah, never mind. The one at Bea's wedding, she and Nick Nack. That help?_

 _I ah..._ Vivian sneezes. Loudly. Maybe that's a good sign. She can feel her nose. _Yes? Course I remember the wedding, Bea was so elated that we were all coming, that girl... and she'd wanted me to meet her little sister for some reason—tiny thing—apparently they'd been in some form of a BB group too? Ah, the thoughts are spacey..._

Dreary raises her voice. It helps with the focus. _Yeah, that! You remember the ancient, surely? Showed up almost completely out of nowhere, like it was invisible, and a lot of people went paralyzed and it wasn't a pretty sight. And Jkonna, that girl! She went running after it like an absolute wacko! But I suppose she only chased it off for so long... Oh, these ancients are much too much..._ To Vivian's mumble and some amount of a bewildered stare, the nychus tries to elaborate. _Ah, right; I think the ancient's in the room right now, trying to get at your Doug. Mmh, you were right: he_ is _strong._

For some reason, she doesn't know why, her eyes just... get all glassy and wet and... start to fill with tears. Maybe her nose, oh, it just itches so badly, or maybe it's how suddenly exhausted she feels, or maybe it had, umm, _something_ to do with what Dreary said—she's not thinking about that possibility—makes her head swim even more—but there it is. And then it's... then it's hard to stop, and she's too weak to do much about it, and it just _hurts_ , all of a sudden, _really_ freaking _hurts_... and it's hard to breathe.

"Um..?" Somehow or another, she feels her boyfriend's legs shift beneath her. "Vivian? What are... What are you _doing_ here? Uh, when did you get there? Actually, when in the world did _I_ get here?" Oh no. "Yeah... why'm I at Secret Island again..?" Oh _no_. "Maybe that's not important right now. A-Are you okay? Oof..." And he doesn't say anything more after that, just starts moving and takes her in his arms and tries to get a good look at her bruised, drained appearance now overwhelmed by tears.

The dark, warm face... glasses partway-broken perched on his nose... warm turquoise eyes, like a tropical sea... his short, soft, spiny blue hair... the angular face, the way he holds himself, like he forgot that he's an important person which somehow makes him endearing... the fact that he offers a smile instead of a grimace, instead of crumbling into worry or anger or any other feeling he's got a stupid _smile_ on that warm face of his.

And he doesn't even ask her if she feels alright. He just sees it. Sees what's going on, right there and then.

Freaking _smart_ , she said. She _told_ them.

Spacey, forgetful, panicky, soft... stop meaning so much to her, dang it. Stop it...

Oh. His eyes widen slightly. _Oh_. The _ancient_. He must recognize there's an _ancient_ in the room... and what's he gonna do about it? He's been so worried about that, tittering around day by day and searching for ways to counter the insane mass of ancients writhing about their world now as if awoken by the flip of a switch... the glasses flash as it hits him.

"Wait here." He starts off, then gently lifts her and puts her on top of her nychus and goes off and stops again and tosses something over his shoulder: "I'll be back, promise."

The slap of sandals on hard silver as he paces off to somewhere. The swimming in her head as she struggles to comprehend... what he meant, what he's doing... what in the world he's gonna try...

When Snivels darts across her vision and there's this huge, golden vivosaur and a small pair with spines and there's Rex's nodo slamming into the walls, gonna send the whole place down if that idiot's not careful. But their dark-furred friend darts after it, next, and his megath, sleepy thing, sort of stays in a clumpy furry white pile, her greenish face poking outward but hiding, too. Vivian's the only one who's not moving, the only gear having yet to turn in a contraption that, so far as she can tell, is honestly asking for failure. She's bracing herself now for it to collapse, for something to break and something else to mess up horribly wrong...

There's something in the air... it's heavy, and hot, yet it goes down her throat in fistfuls of ice, and then it's hard to swallow again. Oh, _great_. She swallows again, tries to focus on breathing, because breathing's only the most important step toward life, and she shuffles and manages a safe hold on her nychus and plants her forehead upon pale pink scales and breathes, breathes, ugly inhales, wheezing exhales, anything that keeps her going.

Something big is about to happen. She feels it, and then she worries, Doug's sweet face forming in her mind. Where did he go? What is he doing, that idiot boy? He's not doing anything dangerous, is he? But then again, that's how they met, through dangerous circumstance, through BBs being idiots and the face of their world soon to be up in the air and almost cut by naught but those _crazy_ dinaurians. And without that nothing would've happened, huh. They never would've... met.

Ugh. Her head hurts. This is gonna make her lose it.

And _where_ is Doug?

Why is the air... so thick now? She feels it like a push from the back, this... _shove_ of energy, a whole new layer of it, like the first ancient's but somehow heavier, heavier, bending and bending and practically suffocating all in the room... and it causes the ensuing rush to calm, the vivosaurs to fall into medals, the people to sag against the cold metal floor... and wait for it to be over.

There is a roar... dull, loud, smothering the first ancient like carbon to a candle, smothering its encased source on all ends until there is no life.

And then the air begins to thin... and suddenly Vivian can breathe again. Coughing fits, first, trying to swallow, to freaking hear herself think, but it's a fluid motion and it pulls her up and she manages to pluck her stupid vivosaurs from the ground, dusting off her lab coat, putting them in their pocket. Her friends get up too, equally disoriented, glancing through slitted eyes up at her.

"You okay, Viv?"

She takes in a breath. "I think I am now. You, Sniv?" And he doffs his head, so it's all good. A check to Rex who's up and at the world fast as he manages, so he's fine too... and she sags, thankful.

"I don't know what that was, but that was awful," she mutters. Slowly she tilts, resting her head in her hands, groaning softly. "Where did Doug go..." but her inquiry is halted by the steady sound of approaching feet.

And what do you know? There he is, bright face and all. "Dhh—Doug!" She goes after him, balling him up at the shoulders, fingers tight about him, "You idiot! You stupid, stupid, _stupid_... ugggh! What in the world were you _doing_ out here on your own? Y-You could've... could've..."

Well. Something scary could've happened. Something... _scary._

"Mm? Why d'you think that? I almost forgot what I was doing for a moment there, but really, I was fine." A stray medal in his hand—one embossed with a heavy layer of color, the rim a shiny black—he pushes into a random pocket. "So. Two reasons. I was—"

" _Two?_ Ugh! Doug!" He turns back to her, the turquoise eyes dim. "You... ugh, _idiot_ , don't go and _multitask now!_ That's such a stupid move to make! Don't you realize how much at freaking _risk_ you could've put yourself, you... you...

She looks back up at him again. Ducks her head. "Ah. Sorry."

"Heh." He's gentle, then. "I know what you mean, Vivian." Sigh. "I'm sorry too. I... wasn't as clear as I wish I was... and _I'm_ the one who always asks you to choose your words better... I'm really sorry," and his voice is lower, softer, and he's back to smiling.

How many times have they had this sort of conversation? It was so funny, this guy, Doug. His actions are a patchwork of what sometimes feels like complete random guesswork and a whole lot of luck without any sort of background to formulate it, and she's seen that echoed in other people he's grown attached to—Dino and Jkonna, sometimes even herself... but it's not results that matter to him, never really has been. It's the thought behind it.

She forgets that more often than she should. He... He just recovers so easily, and he's always so upright and positive, it's hard to remember how easily words hurt him, and as soon as she gives into her frustration and starts yelling... as soon as she stops thinking about what she's saying... as soon as she calls him an idiot, again and again and...

"I'm... I'm really sorry, Doug... you know I don't mean it."

And he smiles again. "I know you don't mean it, Vivian. It's alright." Gentle again. What a... _sweetie._ Oh, gosh. Her heart hurts again. "Heh. You always make sure to step back and apologize after, and I gotta say, you're getting a lot better at it." A smile bursts across her lips before she can stop it and _oh_ , now her _face_ is all red again. "I'm sorry. I didn't tell you what I was doing... and it's only now I'm realizing this. Hmmmm... wow, that was pretty sad of me." Shakes his head. "But no matter. It's all good now. Right?

He releases one hand from her—momentarily—to gesture toward her other friends, and they all sort of flock around the scientist. "So as I was saying... two things: one, I needed to test my new medal." Oh, the big one with the black rim. _Oh_. Like Thomas and Iggy. That's what it looked like. "Yes, that's right! I finally, for the very first time, found myself some fossils for an ancient, and I was able to revive her, so thank goodness for that! Using myself—all alone—as bait, I was able to be sure that my new, uh, friend would be able to help me defeat another ancient once and for all. Works nicely.

"So then the other thing is that I needed to come back here specifically. Forgot about it on the way, but thankfully it's all fine and dandy now. See... it's something Dino told me about a bit back and something else his father—y'know, Dynal—brought up earlier too..."

While he's off brooding, Snivels goes, "Doc, you could just call the guy Dynal, you don't have to bring up the fact that he's Dino's dad like that's the only way you know him by."

"Yeah, but..." He blushes. "Whatever." Snivels giggles. Doug recovers. "About the dinaurians and how they've been around most possibly the longest... like _before_ vivosaurs, even. So I was wondering about, I don't know, if they had a relationship to the ancients at all? And... well, I think that with some tinkering up in here and observing just how long ago this starship crashed, estimating how old dinaurians were to the vivosaurs that came to this island and fossilized... I was able to figure something out."

He does get a slight silence, a bit of a suspenseful moment, though nobody really wanted to wait for what he has to say.

"So... I'm thinking they share a form of similarity, like fighter-to-vivosaur, dinaurian-to-ancient, which would explain how Dino not only revived and befriended one but two of them, not to mention the ordeal jumping around about his sister... You did know, right? She's apparently been possessed by one for years now, jumped in on her while everyone was still in stone sleep. So... well, a very very long time. Millions of years. And, well. For awhile I thought the only way to tame an ancient if you came up on one of them was there _wasn't_ and you had no chance... but I _knew_ that couldn't be it." Releasing a breath, he struggles with whatever it is that's next.

"The two very... _very_ clearly have a link, though what exactly that is I can't say, but I'm going to gue—I mean, _infer_ , that dinaurians have some sort of power over the ancients. I'm thinking it has something to do with how dinaurians by all means look a lot like if us humans and vivosaurs or ancients or the like collided, and there's a hazy form of that power having to do with this connection... And it looks like it relates to us, too, because I never would've thought I could revive an ancient... but, well, it seems I have. Strange, this world of ours..."

Quiet, for a little while. The words hang above the four, heavy, thick.

Rex mutters something. Vivian starts.

"Wait... but didn't Bullwort revive Thomas?"

Doug glances back at her, little smile on his lips. "I don't think so. He would've, first of all, had more control over the frigi; and second, I'd known if he had used the revival machine. I think Dino had something to do with that process too... hmmm, I just wish I could articulate exactly _how_ this is all connected. I just... I know it is. I know something we've been overlooking is there, and it has to do with this surplus of ancients and the arrival of dinaurians, if only I could say how.

He shrugs. "Ahh, but I got quite a bit of research done! Anyone else exhausted? Travers should be back soon, I'd think. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm ready to go take a load off."

Heh. What an idiot...

"Well if you're done here, then I'm ready to go, so long as you don't disappear again..." But she's smiling, so he doesn't take it like an insult.

"I honestly only came because Viv here thought you were going to die!" Snivels laughs then. "I'm relieved and a little annoyed! But it's okay too, I didn't mind." He grins back at his old friend.

From by them, Rex growls again, but that's not a bad growl either.

Doug sighs. "I'm not annoyed, but I'm thinking about the next story Rosie will have for me about chasing away some other ancient and I'm a little tired thinking about it. Probably should give her the ancient, let her actually do something, huh? Ahh, but I worry about her too... She over-reacts so easily... and what if she _loses_ it..."

They continue some lively persiflage through the starship all the way back to the shores, and they wait until Travers finishes his rounds and picks them all up. It's back to the Fossil Center toward the game room, maybe a movie, but by the time they get there, _oh_ , there's the _fourth_ staff girl and final, already in her pajamas and her short pink hair all choppy around her face. Tiffany's at the screen and her anime is turned literally as loud as the little television goes.

They make popcorn. Try to get her to leave.

"C'monnnnn, Digginssssss! I was here fiiiirrst! Lemme watch Romo Hectic Three, friggin would you? Ulhhhh, at least one more episooode..."

And the other staff girls come up later, and it's almost like a party, only more mellow and less cheesy movies.

Better company, too.

 **Heheh, softy ending. More of an insight on what's going on in vivosaur island xD It's crazy but it's okay too, they're all fine, haha. Man I didn't think Vivian was gonna be so fun to write about, holy heck**

 **Their past is interesting too... Snivels and Vivian dated once, whaaat xD I dunno, I feel like they have... since the game leaves so much up to speculation, well if you can't tell by now, I have literally come up with something for, like EVERYTHING, the legendary vivosaurs are ancients and the dinaurians have this whole thing and the main character is something else and there's... well, there's a lot xD**


	19. Rt: Reattachment

**Aaand we're back to Rupy! Haha, man, this is his fifth chapter in this segment (I like to look at it as from chapters 1 to 10 or 11 to 20, etc) and he's got one more before the end too... xD But in a way I feel like he needs it, so it's fine, because his personality really hasn't opened up to the others until recently while in Jkonna's story, she had other stuff going on and it wasn't a matter of actually warming up to her friends x3 poor rupy**

 **But anyways! He's back now!**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 19: Reattachment

 _Rupert_

When morning has returned, I plan after waking to greet the others as they pass, since the chamber with the night sky already is connected to the others and if they go anywhere outside of their rooms they will pass. Dinu has finally woken up and—thankfully—that seems to be one of her only problems: a lack of rest. And the cold, too, but it is much warmer in the cabin... so I think my cousin is fine now.

"Buh? Rup—Rupert, what the heck? _Why_?" but it takes me a moment to respond to her, it feels so... nice to hear her albeit crude tone again when it had gone silent for so long. The peace that flickered over her sleeping face has fractured off into frustration. She glares at me quietly as I turn and face her.

"We were hurt a couple of days ago. Do you not recall your little stunt, nearly hurting yourself, um, very badly when you decided you would let an ancient possess you in the middle of the forest, no less? Your tophis attacked me. And you were practically unconscious by the time I found you... We were both heavily injured."

A scowl digs into her face, deeper, deeper. "That doesn't explain why _you're_ in here." Her feet, which had been by my sitting figure, have since pulled up to her chest. Her head lays on her pillow still, her face puffy and obnoxious.

I look away slightly. "Um... this is the first bedchamber. We were both heavily injured. So Mier and the others left us on the closest space available."

This wakens her more. She slouches into her own sitting position, head tilting on her neck, eyes groggy. "Nnnnh... Mier, you say? Course that idiot would do something as... _stupid_ as this..."

"Dinu," I mumble, "it is not that bad..." but since when did she listen to anyone? Shaking her head, blonde hair swaying about her, she goes on to bemoan the cabin and the bed and me and the painted ceiling and when I ask why she tells me it is too much. But too much what? She never elaborates. Oh, Dinu. I know she dislikes physical touch, but so much as to waken vengeful and let it spill into the rest of her consciousness? Though I suppose was I not more worried about our wounds, I may have reacted as... savagely as she.

Oh... that is right. Coughing, I ask, "Di—Dinu? Do you remember what you told me before everything came... down on us?" Harsh yellow orbs crawl up my face. I flush. "Um... I told you, after what happened, I told you that Dina would not, um, die... and you agreed then. Do you... Do you still agree?"

Her expression immediately sours. My stomach sinks. Maybe I should have waited...

"When is that girl _not_ on your mind? My... _goodness_ , Rupert." Sigh. "But I guess my idea blew up in my face, and it was probably not the best idea, so... well, for _now_..." It almost comes out like a joke but for a deadly light her face takes up toward the end of her sentence. "You'd better watch out, though. Rupert. I'm telling you. The ancients are literally everywhere and the actual best way to handle this would be to ki—"

"I know," I whisper, "I know, Dinu, I know." I care about one person more than the entire world. I know. "At least... listen. Pauleen and Todd disagreed with you as well, did they not?" Her face goes stony. That is a yes. "And Mier and Luk never agreed with it either. They did not agree with us or anything else, but they did not tell you that they want to... kill Dina." A little stonier. Not much more, Dinu, please stay with me. "So... we come up with another idea that can appease, um, more people. Alright?" She already has three outright against her... Dinu, _please_...

She puffs her cheeks. "Fine." My heart thuds in my chest. "A-Alright! _Fine_! We don't kill her! But... Rupert, listen to me right now: if there's anything we know about these ancient guys, it's obvious they all do things a little differently. Zongazonga didn't crush your, uh, soul, and he didn't do that to Joe either, but Pauleen's comfortably lives in her freaking head with her. There's... differences.

Which means... "Dina might be dead already, for all we know. What I'm saying is you have to be prepared for that sort of thing. We won't kill her. Not now. But it might come to that, and it might've already happened."

"Um..." Where is she? Not in here... maybe under the bed... "Reyna... you remember the blind and deaf krypto... she showed up yesterday. While you were asleep." One eyebrow raises; she is not all that interested. "And Reyna—Reyna said she came from inside of... Zoazoa. With Dina. And she has seen Dina. And so far as she knows... Dina is not dead."

"Good for you." She shakes her head slowly. "I still think we should kill her. But I— _hey—_ don't get that way—I _get_ that nobody else is with me on that. I-I get it. I get it. It's... fine. Just... don't go too soft. In case something happens to her. I mean, whatever, good for you: _proof_. I just... I don't know. Don't be so trusting. I don't trust this situation all so much... And Dina might be gone now too."

Ah... How does she say it so easily? "Dinu..." But I know by now not to keep pushing at her. She will shut down and ignore me if I go so far. "O-Okay. I will... try my best." Admittedly my best is not very much effort at all—how could I not trust Reyna?—but I can wait too. For the others. She said the others should arrive at some point, and they will most certainly come in a similar direction. Aladee... Nyra... Trikko... Torn. _Torn_. Once I see Torn, I should know; he does not lie about her. No... wait, well he _would_ if it kept me from being around her—he is not... selfless, or unbiased, for that matter—but he would not lie about... about her death.

He would only go so... far. Besides, Trikko dislikes lying as is and would not allow him to. And _his_ opinions are almost facts, they are stated so reasonably and so almost expressionlessly so.

There is a rustling, then, beneath the bed. Soon after, a few small heads poke out from about the patchwork of shadows and messy covers that nearly tip to the floor. One is, in fact, the dark-colored krypto, her blind red eyes bright, the other being a certain Mistress beside her. Others begin to rifle through as well: Sunny raising her yellow-finned head, Pippy bumping into the bed frame, Gyntis coming out a small streak of white and blue, Camri poking his snout through the shadows, Tessa struggling to get out of a sheet.

And others, too, who I would presume to be Dinu's. The neutral vivosaurs, the tophis, the kryptos, the mihu.

When I pluck Reyna and the mapo queen beside her off the ground, the first sneezes and mutters, _I think next time I'm just going back into my medal. Why do all of you stay out for so long? I guess there's less people so you have an excuse to, but I never cared all that much anyways... and auggh, my nose itches..._ Her sneeze is followed by another; Mistress giggles.

They curl up in front of me. Reyna peers toward where she must sense my cousin. _Hmmn. You don't like me all that much, do you? Well. I don't care about you either, so whatever. I hardly know who you are anyways outside of being that one girl Dina got all nervous around... No. Wait. She gets that way around everyone, don't mind me._

Dinu snorts. Otherwise she is of no response.

As sunlight steadily creeps in through the window, the bumps and footsteps of the house full of people awakening warms around us. In the hallway Mier told me of earlier there is the most bustle and some yells, too, and I wonder wherever the pinkette himself is, and if he is this noisy... and if it is nice to hear this every day now. To hear people.

 _Oh, him?_ I glance back at Reyna. She scoffs. _He was still awake in the middle of the night, I think. Maybe you guys should do a guard thing, have some people awake when some aren't, but I guess it doesn't matter when I can't even fall asleep._

 _Um... thank you, Reyna,_ because I am unsure what else to say to her. She bows her head and I turn back, waiting for the others to pass through.

Luk is first, hands in his pockets, his hair a disheveled mess he pointedly decided not to take care of. Seeing the both of us alert and up, he pauses and goes, big smile and all, "G'mooorning! It seems like the sleeping beauties are up." My cheeks heat and I almost say something when he laughs at whatever we must look like now, the two of us. It is not long after that Pauleen trundles in and nearly bumps into Luk. Her eyes are half-closed and she must still be partly asleep... I think Todd woke her, the poor girl. If nothing else she has her waist-length hair rather decently-looking, although the clothes she wore to sleep have folded in numerous places.

Finally there is Todd, who saunters on into the room and makes eye contact with Dinu and squeals and literally jumps onto the bed, springing at her. "DINU'S UP!" he cries, nearly drowned out by the incredibly loud screeching that follows at levels of sound I did not know she was capable of making.

Eventually the dress-donned boy falls to the floorboards with a well-placed kick. "Dinu, you're still meaaaaaan," he mumbles there, hands on his stomach. "Ow, though, seriously... unnnnnnnnh..."

" _Todd_." Pauleen raises her head to he and his voice alone. "Todd, shut up, you're an idiot for thinking it'd go any better." Before she has even finished speaking, her head crashes back on the shoulder of my blue-haired friend, who sort of shrugs but does not wish to move her in fear of how she might react to that, if at all, and this is the sorry state we are in when the door for the front spills open and there is Mier behind it. A cloth apron is suspiciously tied around him.

He just smiles, looking at us. "Y'all are an interesting bunch." And he comes in like that, little grin tugging on his face. He helps Todd up before continuing, but he takes the time to pause first, as if letting everyone's gazes sink in upon him. "I made pancakes in that first room, if anyone's interested."

I never saw a room clear as quickly as it does then. Even grouchy, lumpy, groggy Dinu pulls herself out of bed and goes stomping in the general direction of the others. I stare as my friends desert and with the door crooked open catch the slightest whiff of sweet cooked food... and I look up at Mier and tell him, "They must like you a lot more now."

"Mmmh. Yeah." He goes to sit beside me and stretches. "But do you?"

"I-I..." Mier, you do not need to... "I already liked you. This only... adds to your esteem. Cooking is a useful tool, albeit one that is not commonly practiced..." We do not require food often, but it helps, certainly, and in frigid relations like these there are few things that can melt such ice as well as home-cooked pancakes.

Looking away, there is a small smile on his face. "I appreciate it. That is... in case you didn't know that, I appreciate it. Can't blame your friends for not trusting the guy with the convenient cabin in the middle of nowhere, but you did anyways... and I really appreciate it. Heheh..." He lifts again, extending his hand out to me as I turn toward the door. "You coming or what?"

Only when I step on the ground my—my foot—it bends and—the bandages I hear go _shhhk—_ and then I cannot stand any longer and I land hard on the floorboards. "A-Ah..." I must look so... shameful. "M-My apologies, I seem to have, um... worn your bandages thin."

"Pff... stop being all soft about these things. It's cute."

"C-Cute?" I mumble... but it is a little difficult to focus on his words with my throbbing foot below me. I shuffle back toward the bed and attempt to lift myself back on but... it is too high up... and my foot aches putting weight on it... and oh, I must look so foolish... Mier... Mier said cute, though. He said... cute. N-Nnh...

I feel his eyes travel with me, and he murmurs, "Annoyingly so," a bit of his smile retained. He steps by me and takes my hands and helps guide me back upon his bed, to which he tells me to sit and tells me to stay, that he will be back soon, and there he departs using the door to the back, and, if I listen carefully... I think upstairs. _Thm... thm... thm... thm..._ softer and smaller as he goes up.

Mistress, who, alongside one or two of the others, did not leave for breakfast, settles beside me. _I like him. He's a nice boy, and very practical, which I may add that you and Dina both sorely lack in._ There is a bit of a joking tilt to her voice. _Dearie, why do the both of you think so rashly in action? It's what ends a situation cruelly or spells out disaster! My goodness, you and your battle scars! I can't blame you for the broken bone, not_ completely, _but your head I can, and dearie, not to mention those scars on your hands and the one from your cheek too!_

Oh. The one crawling up my jawline, a thin white line now. I had forgotten about that one. A small finger rises and traces it... no longer does it hurt, but a memory from Zoazoa, and her warning not to come any closer. That is when we met Pippy, yes? He... saw me, and I guess managed to... save me. What a... very kind creature. Thoughtless, but kind. Blindly so.

And after that came Todd and our excursion outdoors, where we found Luk, fought and escaped my father, and then hid out in that cave for a little while before I ran off and nearly got myself hurt in that blizzard. But there I found the cabin. And there it had... saved me. And now it continues to save us daily from the unbearable storms and whatever other ill will lies in wait outdoors. Plus... no ancients have waltzed into the chamber.

Why is that? They all lie much further out, far enough that one has to actively search for them if one wishes to actually find any of them. N-Not that this is a bad thing, but I do wonder the reason behind this if so many of them have come so... desolate for mortal bodies to, um, use as they see fit. Zoazoa has been out, though... and back when we first met Zongazonga, he did have difficulty being around his daughter—inside of Dina then, hidden so that not even we knew.

Proximity?

 _Nnnn... I wish I knew, dearie._ Mistress is quiet after that; her presence lays warm beside me. I ask her at some point why the vivosaurs would all go after pancakes if they cannot even eat them and Mistress shrugs, wonders if maybe it was the excitement. But I do not mind this quietude... it is peaceful, yes? And it gives me time to think about these things... about what comes next, because certainly something will: Torn, first and foremost. Torn and the other vivosaurs who may have differentiating information from Reyna's, although I may be putting too much hope into the dimetro. But I guess the real question is what else we have left.

My heart hurts... thinking of it.

It is a welcome break from the stress inside when I look up and see that Mier has reentered, a bundle of hard-wrap material under one arm and the other clasped around a wooden, thoroughly stained box of paints and brushes. "I uh... I had an idea. And I think this'll work better than just some nice bandages, since you're insane and keep trying to walk anyways." He offers me another warm grin and situates himself in front of my foot, which dangles over the edge of the bed, the other I tuck in front of me.

While he sets his work together, my eyes stray to the cozy clothes I am in now. When I changed last night into sleepwear, I found it there and... and now that I think about it... ah, now my face is all red again... "Mier... how much of your clothes have we borrowed?"

"Heh. Not as much as you'd think." He waves it off tenderly. "You and Luk and Pauleen are the only ones that even use some. Your Todd... he's stubborn. And I don't see a reason to own dresses, so he's been wearing his all this time... mmmh, they need to be washed sometime soon. Also your cousin's something else, as I've said and you've known. But anyways, you've only had one pair for daywear and the pants you've got on now, everything else was yours. Luk's used the most: few different pairs of things here and there. We're similar sizes, so we started messing around with that, little bit... Pauleen's just sleepwear though, and as I've said, I've lived here on my own for so long and I have more than enough clothes to share, so it's fine. I... like it." He smiles slightly at the ground. "Maybe it's weird, but... it kinda feels like having friends or siblings stay over for awhile, heheh..."

"Mier..." I feel myself soften to the little sparks of warmth upon him, to his little smile, his gentleness. "O-Oh... but... um, why do you have more than enough of so many things?" As soon as I say it, I realize the answer is obvious.

He shrugs first. "Didn't have much else to do with my time, if I'm honest. Living on my own and all. So it became habit, and then it was comfort too, making things. I've made or found most of the stuff here, though a few's from my family..." His eyes are strangely soft when he looks back up at me. I think he wants... to say something, but then he shakes it off. And after a moment, his gaze lingering on the thick gauze-like fabric spiraling out beside him, he gently takes my foot in his hand. "Hold still or this is gonna hurt a whole lot."

With my nod, I try my best to stay rigid as he applies a cotton-like material around my foot, then pulls the heavy gauze-like material from beside him and begins slowly, methodically wrapping pieces around my foot, starting at the toes, circling around the bottom and top and turning to the heel, going slightly above the ankle and pausing where he deems fit enough. Patting the fabric where it bubbles, he takes another strip and puts a thinner, sticky-looking one beneath it and repeats the process, once, twice, three times with more of the hard, scratchy fabric until he curls his hand into a fist and gently pounds on it and nods.

"I think it's pretty sturdy now... This stuff's stronger than cloth. It's mostly all plaster, actually. Good stuff. Your bone didn't break out of place so much so I thought a bandage would be fine... but man, you just keep on trucking, and now its probably more messed up so this should keep it steady." He swallows, removing the one hand but not the one he used to hold my slender, now-thick foot in place, and his head drops slightly. "I was wondering—stupid question, really, but... uh..."

The hand dives into his box, removes a paintbrush.

"Can you tell me what your Dina looks like? Her, um, face?"

My eyes go from the cast to his lowered head, to the shy way he glances at the floorboards. O-Oh. Oh... Mier. "Of... Of course." And so it begins. I try my best, tilting my head back, eyes closed, to recall the face of the girl I know so well... to conjure the soft, pale cheeks—silvery-scaled—orange, wavy hair down past her shoulders, violet eyes... a small smile that tended to stick to her unless provoked, but otherwise there it was, like... a promise, like something I could always count on. Soothe.

I lose track of exactly where, but my voice begins to tremble as I go on, and on, and I look into little touches of her, hair that was soft sunrise orange but if you looked closely enough held a sheen of silver, the lightest hues of pink in her cheeks, in her lips, the little way she would fidget in place if left alone long enough, until there I am whispering about things that have naught to do with the look of her face.

"The softest voice, Mier... it was so soft, and small, and sweet. She is... oh, such a lovely little girl... Shorter than all of us, even, she only went up to my chin... and it was strange, Mier, but... she had scales. It... It all _changed_ , one day. I am not sure how to put it. She was... fighting Zongazonga when it happened and he would not submit and it was... as if a hologram had split and there were scales. She did not understand it either... the confusion on her face was so... oh, Dina..."

His eyes, at some point, had strayed up toward me instead of the painting he had started on the cast. One that, as I look down, cheeks hot, is nearly completed but for structure in the edges. His eyes gently twist, though there is a melancholy hanging on the edges of his face too. "Mm. Rupert, you talk like you've known this girl all your life, heh..."

Looking away, I mumble, "Sometimes that is what it feels like... um, as if I did know her... all my life. She is so... easy to befriend, so... happy and sweet and... ahh, my apologies. How long have I been talking about her..?"

"Heheheh... awhile." Catching my flustered appearance, he laughs a little harder. "Whoa, whoa, it's fine! Heheh... it's funny, seeing you get all perky and stuff. Like... you're really into your Dina, huh? Your voice gets so soft, and your eyes are all glassy, and you can't stop smiling when you're talking about her.

His eyes lower. "You guys must share a really strong bond."

"A-Ah..." It is hard to focus again. "Yes. I... would like to think so. If... she feels the same way, that is..." But I should not be so low; Dina... she said it with her lips, her words gently lulling in my head: _I love you_... Oh, I become this emotional pool of warmth when I think about her... and then I... I get so... It becomes hard to focus on anything else... and my heart feels so... so _warm_. So... unimaginably warm.

"But still, Mier, I must apologize. I lose track of myself... th-thinking about her."

He pauses, glancing up at me, little finishing touches on her face. "You do?" And it is the way he questions it, purely incredulous, that sets my heart beating. "I don't know about that. You look more like... like you're alive. When you talk about her. But I mean, I've only known you for a week or two now, so maybe I just haven't seen enough of you to know... heh.

"I don't think you're... _lost_ , though. From the way you talk, I think you did once. But you've been found now... least, that's what it sounds like."

The way he toys with my emotions is overpowering...

I sigh. "Mier, why do you... care so much about me?" If not then why does it feel like it, every time you converse with me, every time you come up to me, every time you... touch me, even, with gentle hands? Simply the way he took my foot and the way he firmly but softly holds it in an attempt not to disrupt it or his painting—one he did for me—one I did not even ask or... pay for, that he did of his own volition—this is all so conscious... to my needs.

"Isn't it enough after everything I've seen you do—and not only that but manage to pull off?" His lip curls, his brow furrows. "Literally I've seen your vivosaur completely throw you off her—while unintentionally—and you broke your foot in not one but two places and your leg was messed up and you kept freaking _walking_ until you made it. You've got... drive. And there's power in that, I like to think." Soft grin. He is more focused on the painting than me now. "Seriously though, you've done a lot. I admire that, so... yeah." Really. I guess that is... hard to believe, for me.

Looking away from him, I mumble, "Well you have done a lot too..." I will not digress on his thoughts; that is rude. Although I do wonder.

"Heh. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, but that's all that I ever cared about, so it's not _exemplary_ of me or anything."

Yes, but... "But that's exactly it: you _were_ there. You still are. You keep putting effort into us, even if you only do it because you have the resources too. That is good... that you have a limit. I know not a lot of people, um, think that way, and you do quite the amount of observation over others, which some do find... strange..." And there is something else, something about that strange... buzzing... _power_ that enthralls him sometimes... the sad way he would look up from it... "But I do not. I am... thankful for your presence."

And he snorts. "Yeah." Doesn't sound very believing.

Though I suppose I did not either, so I should let this one go. He recognizes this, golden eyes trembling in front of me, but he is quiet about it too. Which is fine. I do not mind.

"Goodness, Rupert. The way you talk up your girl makes me wanna meet her." Ah. And back to Dina. "You gotta throw in some flaws or it'll look like she's inhuman." To my startled jolt, he looks down, laughing softly. "Yeah. What's something about her that isn't good? C'mon, I need the whole of her, not the perfect rendition."

Ah... of course he would want to know. "Well... her face is... very angular. Nearly... geometric, really. Heh. And her nose is narrow but... long, I mean... not here, but..." I raise a finger and sort of go up the bride of my nose. "And she is shy. So very shy. She cannot talk to strangers, though sometimes she tries. It is... cute, though, really. She holds in the things that hurt her and does not speak of them, like there is... glass inside of her. But that is no good... she hurts herself with it. And—oh, she cannot be alone. She needs... encouragement. Without encouragement she looks down on herself and then she goes all... 'inferior', the poor girl... and when you ask she tells you it is fine, it does not matter to her... She is sweet to a fault. Dina..."

Oh, this is no good... now I miss her even more... I miss the feeling of having someone, having _her_ , someone so close to me at my side at all times. I miss the way she felt about certain things, and how she was shy to bring them up but if you watched her closely and mentioned it yourself she would get so... red in the face, and happy: I cannot remember how many times she would start to my noting something and she would start to smile again. I miss the simple fact that she was here... and now she is not.

Dina, what a lovesick fool you have made out of me... oh my goodness...

When I look back into Mier, I realize my eyes have gone... blurry. And I sigh, and I hang my head, letting the bangs swoop over them. It just... hurts. A constant ache in my chest. She stole a piece of me when she went away... and I need her here, I really do. And this must seem so... pathetic, especially to people of my caliber but I... but I love her, and without her I feel so lost, and I need her here... I need her here with me.

So when Torn comes... maybe he can help. Maybe... please... Please, Torn, please know something that Reyna did not, please have a suggestion that nobody else even thought of... please change this horrible feeling deep inside of me that I cannot see my sunshine again... if... if there is any chance, I... oh, I cannot stand this pain...

It takes me a moment before I feel him next to me again. I lean against him, breathing weakly, struggling to focus. Mier speaks softly but there is a lilt to his tone that almost comes off as... cold. "I'm envious, honestly. I never knew someone who hurt me this badly I couldn't even be a few days away from them... I mean, I've hardly known anyone before. So, well... heh. I'm jealous."

Oh...

"If you knew how much it hurt... maybe you would not be so jealous." I cannot help it. I am in pain. It just... comes out. And I wince. But really, it does hurt... but I never even felt this much before her, without her, before I ever met her, so I must be lying...

And he knows it too, now doesn't he? "Yeah." And I swear when I look up I see between tears a jagged, unruly smirk perched triumphantly upon his lips.

So I say nothing after that. I just try to breathe. As much as it hurts, I need to... get through this, I need to keep going again. Because if I stop then there is no hope, not now, not in the future either. There are others who want to see her too, I am not alone in this journey, but... if _I_ stop then what does she even matter to me? So I... No stopping. Gently I lift my bandaged foot and put the clunky cast on the bed next to my other foot, and I pull my arms around them and I rest my head against them and I stay like that for a little while.

When I return to him, Mier has my mapo queen beside him and he is stroking her head. There is a smile on her snout. A little glimmering warmth.

"Mistress is nice," he murmurs as explanation, and of course I take it, as she _is_ nice. Very nice.

I swipe at my eyes and say, "Yes," and he turns to look at me a little after that, almost like there is recognition in his burning eyes. They have strengthened again, the hot gold, and it is difficult for me to look into them again—why do they change, I wonder?—so I focus on Mistress too, and I gently pet her. She likes the feeling of being preened so there is no digression out of her. Maybe he is upset, maybe that is why they change... the intensity of some emotions. But after such a sheltered life... oh I wonder what it was like, so devoid of attention for so long... Although I guess I know it too. But he is... different. He grew up differently. He knows how to... create things, to touch the world with his life.

"You never had any vivosaurs of your own?"

He turns toward me, grimacing. "I've had a couple. They didn't like me, though, so now I don't have any." Oh.

"But that is better than nothing, yes?"

Somehow this evokes a little laugh out of him. What is it about me that he finds so attractive, so enjoyable to be around? "Heheh... You call Dina like this little bundle of happiness and then you start trying to act it yourself. Man, I wonder, if I pay close attention to you, just how many things'll sound like the stuff you labeled her as..."

"Ah..." He glances over to my face, thoroughly flushed, and giggles again.

"I'm just teasing. You can take it the wrong way if you want, though. Your reactions are so biiiig... and that makes them pretty funny."

Oh, why do you embarrass me so... and what is it that makes him so enjoyable for... for me? Why do I like to be around him, especially if the others were thrown off in the beginning? I know there is something a little off with him, I-I understand that, but there is... I cannot tell. Something about him, something about how he is... about _who_ he is... that, um, that I guess makes me happy. Makes me happy about... him.

When I look back up at him—the apron cuts into my vision—and then I remember. "Oh, that is right... you made pancakes for everyone. It would be rude of me not to..." He snorts at this. "But they must be cold by now... oh, my apologies, I did not mean for it to—"

"Actually I left them in a little tin hanging up by the fireplace, so they're still warm. Hahaha..." He gives me this strange, warm look. "Do you want to try my cooking?" And then my face flushes and he laughs a little more. "I knew that was coming. Well. C'mon, I'm sure they've saved some for you. You're their friend, aren't you?" So he gets up off the bed and extends a hand toward me once more, which I gently take to ease myself onto the ground again. The cast he made for me, while hard and cumbersome, lays tight around my foot but firm, so it is... easier to walk with than when my foot was lain out for nature to attack.

Somehow, the way he said it, _you're their friend, aren't you_ , sticks with me much later than those short last seconds in his chamber.

As we go off toward the living area, with the fireplace and the table, I ask him if I should go to one of the guest beds now, since I have majorly recovered and it is his bed, anyways, and I feel a little strange always using it, but he awkwardly mentions that with all of my friends he is unsure if he has much space left, he will have to see. But he assures me whatever happens is fine, that he likes staying upstairs in his studio anyways, that he wants to paint over the walls again so it is fine.

"Oh... so when you were not around with us yesterday, that is what you were doing?"

He halts and I bump into his side slightly. Looking up, I take in the frozen composition of his face, the distant gaze, the lip he bit into, his fingers twitching by his sides. Slowly, slowly, he exhales, and slowly with that he recovers. But for a moment... I think... he appeared as if he did not know what I was talking about—after Dina, I know that look quite well. "Yeah." And then he goes on, just like that.

My heart thumps quietly in my chest. I feel it raise and harden with the actions Mier took, but as I go after him I wonder if there is something else about him, something he is... afraid of, deep inside of him. Something about his sheltered home, us being company he has not had for such a long time, the vivosaurs that, um, _did not like him_ , when while he is a little strange he is rather personable and warm if one only gets to know him, and vivosaurs always manage to see deep into the core of their fighter as it is...

Mier, what is it with you? What are you hiding in the depths of your heart?

I want... to befriend you, but as close as you get sometimes I still feel as if you are pushing everyone far away from you and burrowing into yourself, where you leave all of your fears and stress to wallow.

That being said, there are many ways to deal with pain, but... I cannot help and worry about him. Something about him... something about the way he carries himself and the way he acts, even, the immense feeling of power that sears into my mind and the way I cannot look into his eyes at key moments...

Will you tell me one day? Maybe? Or perhaps you will keep it all locked deep inside of you, for as long as you can keep it there until it all comes pouring out, a flood of unstoppable pressure that has welled up deep inside for far too long.

If he has been alone for so long... What does total, utter isolation do to a person?

The reason I had no attention was because of a father. But he was there; as self-imposed as my imprisonment later became, the seed was planted by he himself... and as much as I want to relate... does he push others away? Maybe he wants to open up, but it is... hard to for him.

I wonder... but not for long. We step in and there they all are, chatting amicably amongst themselves, even Dinu—well, to her definition of "amicably", which is not all that kind but it is more than enough for her. Luk scoots over in his chair so after Todd gets up and refills his plate with pancakes and then forking it off to me, I sit next to him though I fiddle with the plate for longer than necessary, staring at the brown smudges that were Todd's, where his spittle might be, his fingers, even... until I give up and start cutting them.

The scent of warm, lush cinnamon blows out into my face and I think I know why the others are so much more enjoyable now. These are... _these_ are... oh, and I cannot hold out much longer and swiftly finish cutting them and use his little jar of syrup, spreading it evenly, and once I finally put a cut piece of pancake in my mouth I cannot hardly believe the warmth and the sweetness and the intensity of how much I really _like_ them, really _really_ like them.

My father has bad taste in food. That is the only thing I know now. Every little expensive morsel he scooped up because of price was not created with nearly as much heart as these, and it makes me remember once again that most truly wonderful things come without a price, and that also I think I never actually ate a pancake before, at least not this kind of one, and I have been missing out all of my life.

"Rupert, are you crying?"

"A-Ahh..." Oh, dear... "Maybe a little."

Luk bursts off into laughter. "The pancakes are making you _cry_? Rupert, what is _wrong_ with you?"

"Everything," I mutter, "but the pancakes make it better, so it is alright," while beside me Luk loses himself to an intense fit of giggles.

Silly...

By the time I have finished, Camri lies next to me and glances at the plate, whimpering. _You do not want it, do you?_ I ask him, but then he nods like the fool krona he is, and when I remind him that consumption will not assist his nonexistent digestive tract it seems he does not care. _Then why would you want it? You will surely make yourself sick._ Looking back at the dark-eyed creature, it comes to me. _You want whatever attention it will give you._

 _No._ There it is. _No, o-of course not, that's dumb._ Oh, Camri. I get out of the chair, passing Luk, and search across the chamber for where Mier or a sink or some form of cleaning is, to find that toward the front where the cabinets are lies one, overflowing with bubbles and partly-capsized plates. Mier, from the area just by it, takes it from me and plops it into the sink with the others. I stray by him.

"Um... you cook well."

Those golden eyes peek back toward me. "Mm? Heheh. Thanks. I try my best. Like you said, it's not super common these days especially, what with stronger bodies and vivosaurs and less need for sustenance, but I like it. And it usually perks people up easy, heh. Icebreakers are good.

His voice goes softer. "Your friends are interesting people. I'm, uh, happy y'all found this cabin too. Yeah..."And the eyes are quiet and dim in his head, like there is something else, oh, once again, something else just on the edge of his lips, so close to being said and yet so far... so far. Like a "but" almost, hanging at the end of a thread. But he cannot say it, and so he does not, though there it hangs in the middle of the conversation.

"I trust you... if I never said that before. I know that you are a stranger and perhaps it is overmuch of me but I... do. You saved Pauleen and myself when you had no reason to; you told us to run and... well, especially with the ancient in her head... I am unsure what sort of idiocy I would have managed had you not said what you did." I swallow, blushing. "You are... very reliable, Mier."

"Even though you know there's something I'm not telling you, mmh? You've told me everything, honestly. You've shown me sides that you probably didn't want anyone, let alone a stranger, seeing, but I've done nothing of the sort." Nervous, his eyes flit for the ground. "Y'all can _tell_ something is up, but—" And there it is, when he stops. He... stops.

Wincing, I whisper, "Mier?"

He shakes his head as if waking from... a trance. Foggy eyes reverting upward again, body tensing, releasing, smile grim. "Hmm? Ah. Sorry. I'm fine." Pause. Wince. "It's nothing."

"Oh, um... I worry about you." I feel so... open, so plain and obvious and earnest as I say it, and for once I am opening the barriers myself, expression clear, voice wavering.

"I'm fine." A smooth counter. "I'm absolutely, completely fine. You're making conflict out of nothing." And he passes me, and that is it.

Well. Now I _must_ worry, yes? Mier... what is going on inside of him? What is... what is he struggling with? Something is palpable, something is plainly fighting in him... but whatever it is, he cannot show me, not really, not quite. Shy, I would think, or perhaps there is no reason to tell a near-stranger about these things. Although... he is not a near-stranger anymore, is he? I feel like... it has been longer than the few weeks that have come and gone. I suppose it is only expected, what with the amount of trouble I continually worked myself into.

I try to think about it again, about what might be causing him trouble, if there is anything I can do other than worry, when I hear a voice. A loud voice, gone dull from how far away and raw it has come, a hot voice, chilled by the atmosphere, an angry voice: yes, angry.

 _Shhhhhhhhhhit! Trikko, you don't fucking know where we are and neither does Nyra, alright? Damn you and your uptight attitude!_

A voice I know very well. Before I even think about it I am at the entranceway and I push the doors outward and step into the snow, my bare feet numb immediately, no matter how bright the morning sky is, and there, oh, there, on the edge of the trees ahead, there that glorious, notorious creature is. He sees me too, bright pink eyes reeling, and the smoldering blue body springs forward, quickly followed by a tricera of similar coloring, and above... circling... their feathery nycto ace, too.

 _T-Torn, there you are,_ I whisper. He speeds after that, his feet making thick, waxy footprints in the snow, and he pulls to a steaming halt in front of me. I settle to my knees as he shrinks into a smaller form, and I ask him why it took him two days longer than Reyna to get here.

To which I am given a shrug... and a promise. _I don't fucking know; Dina's clingy? She reeaaaaally didn't want me to go. Maybe that had an effect on it._

The tricera beside him smirks. _Torn. We both know that isn't true and you're just inflating your oversized ego. She was just as upset with my departure as she was yours, as she was Nyra's, as she was Reyna's and Aladee's too. Nyra told us she'd waited around the same amount of time for you to arrive as me, and you can stop rubbing that lie into the faces of people who weren't there to witness it because it's not even getting you anywhere. You do realize that?_

She is... She is still doing alright, so far as I can tell. My breath comes out in bursts as I take this in, as I breathe, as I nod, as the rush of the chill outside catches up with us and I turn back and open the door to the cabin, letting the three vivosaurs in. Nyra offers me a little smile, her green scales shimmering with the light of the morning, and Trikko doffs his horned head, although Torn does none of the sort. He merely glances at me... and then he scowls, as if a bad taste lingers in his maw.

 _Dina remembers you. Mostly. Fuck—uhhhhh. Sort of. But not completely._ He grins like this is a prize of his. _I remembered your name but I didn't let her know it._

Nyra jolts. _Y-You did? I think I heard it too, but I was so overcome with everything else that it didn't quite sink in for me... Oh, hmmnnnn, really? You really... heard it?_ She shakes her head weakly, baffled. _Nnnnh... poor Dina..._

Torn does not like that. _POOR DINA? THE HELL? SHE REMEMBERS EVERYTHING ELSE AND SHE HAD US!_ His dark blue head sinks and Trikko sighs, trotting up toward him.

Soon after, the banter alerts Reyna, who charges up through the hallway to meet the other vivosaurs. _Ahh, is that you I sense? Torn, Trikko... and Nyra?_ A twinge of disappointment touches her. _Is Aladee the last one?_

 _The last one?_ Trikko glances back at her, his icy eyes thick. _What do you mean, the last one? He left after you did. We... haven't seen him since._

My eyes dart back and forth between the vivosaurs, the creatures Dina always held so close to her, the creatures that have seen her since her fall, the creatures that, with a sharp cry from Reyna, realize they are still missing one of their numbers. _No, that's not right,_ she mutters, _no that's completely not... aaaaugh! He got lost, didn't he..! And you guys didn't see him and he... ohh, Aladee, you... no..._ Her blind red eyes go glassy as she shakes her head.

 _But... But we're almost all here!_ Nyra tries. _Everyone else is! A-Aaand we found Rupert, and he's in a cabin, which isn't outside, which, I don't know about all of you, but I think that's very nice! That's... That's a good thing!_ Only, throat rasping, she sounds like she is trying to convince herself more than anything else. _It's... It'll be okay, right?_ To which she pauses. _You want to help... Dina too, right?_ Her gaze flits back up toward me, a sudden streak of worry in her eyes.

Torn snorts. _Shit, Nyra; Reyna's here, so it's fine. She wouldn't trust him unless she had a good reason to... though I could see her pulling something out of her ass since she's too stupid to do anything for herself, ehhh?_

 _That's not even a good attempt at being funny, Torn,_ mutters the krypto in question, and she laughs at him, causing the others to jab with her too, and while he moans about it now, it is palpable in the air how much he enjoys the attention too.

They care... so _much_. It hits me hard just how _much_ they care, these beautifully precious creatures.

And they continue on like this, their voices lapping over and under each other in a viscous mix of different sounds: the hard loud of Torn and the deep low of Trikko and Nyra's high and Reyna's stark, all choppy and missing in pieces depending on how loudly or when one or another is speaking. And I remember my own vivosaurs—as well as Pippy—and the ones with Todd and Pauleen... and I realize then that we are... a much larger force to be reckoned with than I had imagined.

And... this is something. There are people who care and... this is not _nothing_. I have yet to understand what any of it amounts to but these are all determined and powerful creatures, and they are all on my side... and I am not the only one who wants to save the girl I love. And they are all... people I... I may not _love_ but I... I _care_ about them, don't I? I really... do.

There are more of us than I could have hoped to imagine...

As I shift into their flow, Nyra glances down at my foot—at my broken foot—the one I forgot now holds a small painting of Dina's face on it. She titters softly and grins a little. _Yeah, we must be in the right place..! I-I can feel it..!_

 _Yes._ I cannot keep this childish, infectious smile off of my face. _Yes... I think so._

It is wearisome to see all of these faces... yet invigorating as well. It... makes me want to believe there is some form of hope in this world: that we are not built upon null... that there is a chance. And oh, I want to believe there is a chance, a chance for something, anything, but I have yet to truly see if there is... but I want to believe, and I will keep looking until I know for sure.

 **This chapter had a bunch of stuff going on, haha, and food! There usually is no food xD so it felt weird to write food in, hahaha... but necessary, in context, too.**

 **Anyways, there's gotta be a chance right? I dunno, is there a chance? heheh, I've been sneaking in clues here and there, you tell me xD ahh...**

 **So I've now written like 7 chapters in the amount of time it usually takes me to write 2 (because of school)! Man... Because I have Monday off too I actually have the time to write one more, but I was talking with the bf about it and I need to work on an art project so I think I'll just stick to that, uh, and pokemon moon which I suddenly got into xD the bf knows my health better than I do haha**

 **But there you go! I have written... a whoooole lot xD**


	20. Rt: As Forward as I Can

**Sorry for the wait(?) I mentioned this in the last chapter too, but as I said, I did have time to write one more chapter in my break but I think after writing nearly if not more than 60,000 in two weeks it's okay that I didn't write one more chapter right xD Hahaha... ahhh, that was hard work! But it was good work too(?) well heck I think it was, whatever**

 **Chapter twenty! Everything's gonna change in this chapter!(?)**

 **Todd: -gasps- really? what sort of scene awaits us? Ahh I can't look! -flutters hands over face-**

 **Mier: for all you know, that's not the truth**

 **Todd: but it might be, and so I must stay waiting!**

 **Pauleen: ...with your eyes closed—**

 **Todd: BUT OF COURSE WITH MY EYES CLOSED**

 **Pauleen:**

 **Pauleen:**

 **Pauleen: I can't think of anything remotely humorous to say to that, your idiocy astounds me so**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 20: As Forward as I Can

 _Rupert_

I think some part of me expects and braces for the oncoming flood, but the majority of my somewhat-chilled senses take utterly dull notice of how the other vivosaurs and the other people, for that matter, react to the sudden new additions to the cabin. First off, less people than I remembered enjoy the company of parts of a certain dimetro, most notably his filthy mouth. And that is without the ensemble he brings with him: the nycto ace frolics about, the rather intelligent tricera he calls his best friend.

Even so, expected or no, the ensuing banter is baffling.

 _RUPERT, HOW DARE YOU INVITE MORE ORPHANS INTO THE HUMBLE ABODE!_ Although I suppose I should have expected the response I receive from a certain ungrateful krona. _WHILE I ADMIT ANY ATTRACTIVE VIVOSAUR IS WELCOME, ONLY SO MANY CAN BE, AND THE BLIND AND DEAF KRYPTO'S FRIENDS MUST BE AS BLUNT AND UNSEEING AS SHE!_ Never has he been one to sugarcoat his words. So long as he may saturate them to his extent with that sickening barb he calls provocative...

Camri is a mess, and unfortunately he does not clean up after himself.

Of course the questioned dimetro immediately takes offense. _DAMMIT RUPERT, I HATE HIM! HE'S AN ASSHOLE! MAKE HIM LEAVE ME ALONE! LET ME FUCKING LIFE, YOU BITCH, ALRIGHT?I DON'T SEE YOU BENDING OVER FUCKIN' BACKWARDS TO SAVE SOMEONE'S LIFE! HUH? OH, YOU'RE WONDERING WHAT THE HELL I'M TALKING ABOUT, HUHMMMM?_ And there he purrs. Nobody takes amusement. _WELL I'M TALKING ABOUT MY FIGHTER! RUPERT, YOU CAN'T TURN A PIECE OF SHIT INTO A VIVOSAUR, IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY._

And what else can Camri do but take offense back? One-tracked minds have but one direction to go, and that is the same circle they have always been in.

 _ALL OF THAT FROM MY GREETING? GOODNESS GRACIOUS, YOU ARE QUITE THE JUDGER! RUPERT, HE MUST BE EXTERMINATED, WHAT A DISGUSTING TASTE IN MY OTHERWISE PERFECT MOUTH._

Once Torn spits another just-as-profane comeback, I decide not to intervene. Would either of them respond with any less venom if I did? Well... unlikely. Trikko, picking up on my discard, snorts and murmurs, _With some people, there's no convincing them. Torn either gets his way or hurts himself trying to. I'm afraid your... intriguing krona is similar. Ulh. Nyra, what is it with boys?_

 _Heheheh! I don't know! They must have not matured! Ah well, that's alright: let them have their childish fights. They're not hurting anyone but their own prides._

 _Mmmh. Very true, Nyra, very true._ And while the tricera titters in the direction of his best friend—true to his word—he does not lift any attempt at persuading the fiery soul either. There is a warmth in the cerulean eyes as he watches him, though, infectious from all of the energy romping around inside of that dimetro of his. His head tilts, and he grins somewhat, but he makes no move to stop his friend. Not even when Torn slams his way across the floor and claws himself up the table and ducks onto the chair and slaps Camri and sears himself—his fiery claws—in the process.

But some people never listen. I cannot help myself and smile slightly at that, at the fond idiocy in Torn's big, hot, amethyst eyes, an idiocy he must not even be aware of.

 _I'm insulted, but I don't feel like fighting about it, since that idiot krona's not all that smart anyways._ A huff and Reyna enters, whipping her tail from side to side. _Aladee, though. We need to find him. You're fine with that, right, Rupert? You have to be. He's_ Aladee _. He's going to do something regretful and stupid if he's kept by himself for too long..._ Her head tilts but she remains composure, muttering under her breath, Aladee's name little spikes of volume.

Mistress, from wherever her recent perch had become prior, sidles up by the newly-arrived nycto ace and calls her name cheerily, to which she is given a quick and bright reply, each of them giggles and mirth. _Do tell me you fare well, dearie! I've been so worried! Ohhh, so worried, and I cannot begin to explain how worried Rupert's been—but don't say that in front of him or he'll get embarrassed!_

 _Heheh! That sounds like him. We're mostly okay, though! Just... worried, too, I guess. A little startled, a little cold, but nothing a bit of time won't help us recover from. Plus, this place is so... so..._ Nyra tilts her head up toward the ceiling. _Spaaaaacious! It's sooooo spacious! Ohhhh my goodness, it's sooooo big and nice!_

 _Dearie, it's not that large!_ Mistress giggles warmly.

Her friend digresses. _It is to me! But that's good, because there seems to be so many of us now!_

And she is right. Including the three vivosaurs—and Reyna—there are mine, and Pippy, and the ones accompanying Todd and Pauleen and Dinu, not to mention Todd and Pauleen and Dinu themselves as well as Luk and Mier and myself. Quite the party. It is... a little strange for me to turn around, to hear bustling laughter, to see so many faces, to be shrouded in a feeling of... perpetual unison. There is the dress-bearer himself, his elbows digging into the table as he amicably screams through the noise to Pauleen about some trivial notion of his, while Luk takes to the side of the chamber and converses with Camri, pulling him off of the poor sopping dimetro, Gyntis and Tessa in one corner, others in another, the scales by one's feet and the sound, oh... it's so loud. But not a bad loud, not an overpowering, uncaring sense of loud.

So many voices... so many. The sheer amount of it is quite difficult to comprehend. I only catch snippets of dialogue from place to place, and in such frenetic pace that none of the feelings stick, just a waterfall of heat and sound and color and matter that takes up space, space that build up life, life that continues on.

The immediate effect is so overwhelming I have to duck out of the chamber and stand in the hallway, my head still swimming with sounds that do not quite fit into words, and then even if I did know the words I doubt any of them would connect in the same order than they all had, their writhing mass of sensation, in the living area.

My head pounds.

It was not common in my life... to hear so many. All at once. But the sound of my father's deep, poisonous lilt like a clock that always ticked by, and the scattered frames of whispers on the edges of sound, and there was Dina too, and her lively chime, but never so much all at once.

I wonder, then... what is this jumbled feeling, a tangled ball of the miscellaneous, supposed to be? But it hurts a little to think about it, so in the end I go against it. And I stay there, and I smile a little bit to myself, but only to myself, and for a time that is all. The clothes I wear, borrowed from Mier, brimming with the warmth of my body, are not as itchy as they were at first... Somehow I find this comforting. That my life swaddled in expensive, frivolous fabrics like some exotic pet has not overcome me... or something.

Well... I tilt my head back so that it gently bumps the wooden boards in the wall. What now? Torn is here, and Nyra, and Trikko. And they bring news, once again, that Dina is... alive, if not truly safe. That she remembers me... sort of... but not my _name_. And _Torn_ refused to tell her. But it is of no use: I have no control over that now, and besides, it is not so great of a detail. What is next? Find Aladee—Reyna and the others want their friend to return. But otherwise, all we have been doing this entire time... oh, scrounging our materials, picking up friends here and there, stuffing everyone into the horribly, _horribly_ convenient vicinity of this cabin. And Mier. Mier has been all too kind to our lacking, humble party.

I smile at that too. When did my heart get so warm? It is strange—so strange—to feel the race in my chest, the smile on my face, the bit of something, something, something— _hope,_ oh, hope in my chest. The subtle notion that today is a... a good day. Even so. Despite the shortcomings—and why think about the shortcomings, anyways? it is burdensome—today can still be... simply and truly... a good day.

Funny. The little things in life. Wordlessly complex and yet breathtakingly simple at the same time.

Like life, I guess. Or fate—of the lack of fate thereof. Or emotions, or vivosaurs, or myself, even.

My head slams into the wall when the ground all but crumples beneath me. _BRAHH!_ A sharp tang hits my skull and—and possibly strokes that bloody wound from before but—but when I crouch to the earth—one hand supporting my head I think—I think I am alright, I am alright, it's okay... okay. I lost my breath on the way down and sit there, shuddering, eyes wide and heart thick as I watch out the window of the entranceway.

It comes crawling down the glass. A deformed lug of a thing, wiggling slowly, slowly, icy tendrils causing tiny puffs of water vapor to shimmer and freeze solid in splotches. Down, down slides the snow, almost tenderly in its touch, until it tumbles down to the earth with one final soft slam and the house shakes but not as hard.

And I think that was an avalanche.

 _Pipapipapipapipa..._

And is that snow? Oh. Oh... Well our options were just severely limited, then.

My sincerest apologies, Aladee. But you are a vivosaur: tiny, and lithe, and strong. Please continue to stay strong... but I suppose seclusion in your medal is alright too. Just... try not to get more lost, please.

When I pause, breathing softly, I realize just how hard my heart is pounding. It takes me one, two, three tries to stand and then once I finally lay on my feet I find it too nerve-wracking to move and then I sit again. Little breaths. Deep breaths. Eyes closed. Head resting against the wall again, a dull throb reverberating from the depths of my skull.

It almost feels like I am... underwater.

After some short amount of time, soft footsteps go across from the living area; I feel a presence streak across my figure, and the warmth of not being alone anymore comforts me enough to try and open my eyes again. But I am still quiet for some time, until they speak for me.

"Rupy, whatcha doin'?"

He. He speaks for me. Chipper tone, sparkling brown eyes, a tan and freckled hand reaching out toward me underneath layers of his green dress. His curls dangling about his face, his flushed cheeks, his little curious smile. I take the hand after a few more hesitant moments and he helps me stand, and I reign slightly over him. "The... The avalanche startled me. A little bit." But only a little bit, mind you. Todd does not counter me; we only step closer through a darker, dimmer hallway back into the warmth of the living chamber, the fireplace crackling softly. The table has been flipped carefully to one side; pillows and blankets sprawl alone the ground now, an ajar cabinet door giving away where they were before.

"Loud is _startling_ sometimes." He giggles. "Scary, scary... I didn't like it when my parents were loud, y'know." Todd speaks softly, his fingers warm around mine as he leads me closer toward the others, curled around the flames. "They only seemed to say... mean things... when they were loud." His face pinches like it is hard to speak of. Hard to remember. "Because they were angry. And they were angry a lot.

Deep breath. "Sometimes I thought they loved me. Maybe. They didn't do much to me, treated me well I guess. But sometimes it's hard to tell, right? And that's hard. But it's okay."

And just like that the little smile shimmers along his face.

"You are easy to please," I murmur, watching him closely.

"Yeaaah." He flicks his tongue at me. "Little bit."

We stay like that for a little while.

Of course Todd has more depths than he appears to. His parents... tortured someone. And he saw it, and maybe he _heard_ it, locked up and snug in his bed in his room at night. My stomach... curdles... thinking about it. And he was powerless for so long. And powerlessness is... well. That is... a big weight to carry. A heavy weight, and you cannot even _do_ anything about it, powerlessness. Sometimes not for years.

He just came out of it a little differently than other people have. Maybe he does not consider it hiding but it is, in a way, the boisterous personality, the bubbly outlook, the constant jostling, the jokes.

How strong is he... beneath all of those layers?

I think it is a sense of responsibility he carries now. This girl, this Dina... it is his fault she managed to escape the den of the things he calls his parents, and his fault she is any better today than where she was. So he is where he is now. He tries, and tries, and tries to improve her outlook. Is that not where the childish joy germinates but in a pool of optimism, of hope for this girl's... change?

And for his change even more so..?

It almost hurts, thinking too much about it. There are already so many people and troubles and emotions crawling on top of each other in this stuffy—warm—chamber. The heat swells at one's body but is worth it in comparison to the snow outdoors and the drafty hallway, taunting in the back, if only a door lay there to block its flow.

But it is nice too. In a way.

To our approach toward the underside of the flipped table, an amusing collage of various sprawled creatures greets us. There is Dinu, hair in an unruly mess purposefully covering her face in hatch-marks of shadows, a snarl inching up her lip as anyone dares scoot near her. By her side lies a particular Gyntis whose scaly body is almost completely blanketed in fuzzy fabrics, a few lumps of possible vivosaurs about him. Glancing by the upended table, I gently sit on the floor there and rest my aching head on the underside provided, my eyes lidded gently.

"Mmmm..." The soft but flavorful voice of Luk resonates nearby. "So we're stuck here, is it? Todd, what the heck happened? We aren't... I mean... _Are_ we snowed in? Sure sounded like it..." To a soft murmur, he snorts. "Dang. I don't know how to feel about that. Like I swear every time we'd go outside _someone_ would get screwed over, but at the same time that's where the rest of the world is. Aaaand, I dunno, the rest of the world's kind of important."

Todd giggles before moving again, back to his spot I would think. "Yeaaaah, but only _kind of_ important."

Dinu has something so say to that. I feel her body rustle against the table in small, jerky motions as she struggles to sit up and slick back her matted hair. "No. It's actually not important. What are we missing in here besides a chance of peace?" When she feels my rouse in turn she hisses. "Shut up. Give me a better reason first."

By the distance her lumbering murmur provokes, Pauleen must be almost directly on top of the fireplace. Is that dangerous? I think that's mildly dangerous of her. "Man, why're you so friggin _cross_ all the time? It's hard to listen to. Makes my stomach all clammy, digadig." But then again, Pauleen must be as stubborn as the girl she gustily addresses. She always had enough bravery to amount for almost enough care. Almost. There was that cursed mask of hers.

"Well first you'll have to tell me why you're _not_ cross." Of course. What else would Dinu provide but another snide comment?

"Baaah! I thought we wanted peace!" Todd. Muted.

A snort via my cousin. "Peace is relative. I'm rather satisfied with mine."

"You suck at peace," addles Todd, the warmth in his tone flickering wildly. "Like, really really! You must've not gotten held enough as a kid, that's it.

His inquiry is met with a growl.

"But... huh. Like, half of you weren't held enough as a child. Actually maybe me and Pauleenie are the only ones that were. Rupy's dad was messed up and his mom's all dead and stuff, Dinu's Dinu, Mier's a lonely little Mier, Luk's a servant... Wow! We're a reaaal sorry lot here! Holy dang! I guess Dinu's the only one that went rotten."

Pauleen offers him a giggle. "Yeah, must be! What a snitch of a lady!" When given no retort by my cousin, the pinkette interprets this as reason to continue. "And... like... digadiiig, she's got a coal heart and... and really pointy eyes! I feel threatened when I look into them personally. I'm not the only one, right? Todd, you're with me. You diga-don't even have to tell me, I just know you are, it's how you are."

"Maaan, if only that wasn't true! Then I could show you up!"

And there the telltale growl is. Softer, though. "You're both pains." And she pauses, then, for a moment, the end of her thoughts hanging heavy in the air. "I wish I had a better comeback. You're just too stupid to warrant one. Ulh. Idiocy. It's a horrid tang in my mouth."

"Oh-hooooo, and you're sure those aren't Mier's pancakes?"

"Todd, that wasn't even diga-damn funny."

He winces playfully. "Maaaan, I can't ever win with you! It makes me wonder why the heck I bother in the first place when Pauleenie's all up in my face being a big meanie all the time! Yeaaah! Pauleenie the meaaanieeeee! You big awful weirdo, hurtin' my feelings! One of these days I might run out of emotions for you to hurt, huh! Then that'll show you, and you'll feelbaaaaad! Ha-haaa, then who'll be laughing?" All so smugly, I can imagine the dimpled grin he sports.

"Well. Toddy, you might wanna think before you say, because the one who'll be _laughing_ won't be the one who ran out of emotions." There is a soft cry of palm meeting cheek. "Diga-Dummy."

"Awww! I hate you!" But he says that playfully too, so it is hard to tell what his inferred meaning actually is. Todd and his gentle giggle, his throwaway expressions, his dresses, his big cheeky overmuch smile that always made me a bit nervous before I grew to know the boy.

Luk calls, quiet after the voices, "C'monnnn, enough. Let someone else have a turn."

"Nobody gets a turn!" Todd squeaks, voice shrill, "nobody but me! I'll talk forever and ever and ever and nobody else will ever get to talk again so they'll get all dried up and stuff and then they'll forget how to talk! And... and then they'll learn to... to uh... awww, never mind." A moue.

"You're not very good at thinking on the spot." Mier, keenly. The others go noticeably quiet to his presence, by a mixture of awe and hesitance. "Unfortunately that's all the time we've got for now, snowed in and all. It's not that bad. Suitably warm. Entertaining...ish. How about a ghost story? I don't have much for props but I guess that's the fun of it."

Pause. Todd whispers, fake-nervous, "Ghoooooost stoorieeees? Hoo hoooooo... spook!" Pauleen chortles thoughtfully, and Luk murmurs some form of consent, and Dinu is either asleep or apathetic, I am unsure which is more likely. When I feel his gaze streak over mine, I nod slightly, but I stay with my eyes closed and partially asleep myself, where it is warm and my head hurts less.

From his spot near me, Gyntis chortles as well. Pauleen laughs a little harder, a little satire mingled in, and Gyntis coughs trying. I hear Pippy whimper from wherever he is.

"Alright. Settle down, then. I'll bring you to a world where... two, three, four... six. Where six humans once lived in a reluctant harmony, since discord is no fun and everything is better than discor—"

"Hey, have you ever told this one before? Who'd you tell it to? Your loooove intere—"

"Todd, you'll never figure out what the story's about if your interject." Silence. "Thank you. Moving on."

"So how does it end? Who dies?"

Torn snaps up at this. _Holy shit! Why the fuck is someone gonna die? D-Daaaaaaamn!_

 _You do realize, my foolish dimetro, that this is a horror story being told, yes?_ Trikko snorts.

 _Fuck you. Shut up._

Sunny giggles a little at that. Mistress tries to lecture the dimetro but he does everything outside of listen.

Mier goes quiet. Todd whimpers. Then that goes quiet too. The vivosaurs calm. They move on. " _Anyways_. Where was I? Oh, _right_ : still at the _beginning_ , thanks much, everyone." Clear of throat. Someone giggles. "Six humans in reluctant harmony. Vivosaurs, you can give or take I guess, I don't feel like adding the whole lot of you, it's too freaking many to count off the top of my head. Anyways. The home of choice was a volcano in a distant land, because, well, volcanoes are warm and winter sucks, so volcanoes are good places to live." Someone tries to voice a question and he quickly cuts them off: "Because they're basically summer igloos _Todd_ , c'mon, give me a break." Another notable whimper. "So. Summer igloos. Six people and a volcano. Rather... _explosive_ times, if I do say so myself.

He pauses for effect. Nobody laughs. "Alright, be that way. Their volcano wasn't as hot as some volcanoes are, good for them, because who'd want to live in a smelly, sweaty, overbearing volcano? Not too hot or too cold, gotta be just right of course. And everything _was_ just right of course.

"For awhile, at least."

With that, Todd utters a soft gasp. "No. NO. NO, WHO DIES FIRST?"

Torn cries out. _DAMMIT, NOBODY SAID ANYONE WAS DYING!_ I think he has more to say but somebody cuts him off and leaves him sniveling angrily.

"Oh, Todd!" The scratch of feet on wood and I curiously reopen my eyes to watch the pinkette smash his heads around the side of the boy's head. His voice booms as he cries: "BUT ONLY YOU DIED FIRST!"

His response is only as melodramatic as he must have been hoping for.

"NYOOOOOUUUHHHHHHHHHHHH! DEATH, SWEET DEATH, HOW I HATE YOUUUUUU!"

Somebody winces.

And with that the curly-haired boy collapses in front of the fireplace from his seat atop it by Pauleen. She waves him off, grinning smugly, as he lays there in over-played and badly-timed spasms that do not mesh with his awkward hiccup noises. Eventually he sticks out his tongue and closes his eyes and Mier layers over him, pronouncing the boy "dead".

I think he knew this was the only dramatic response he would receive. While my heart flutters, he goes on, his voice stooping to carry the low warble of grief. "Nobody knew what had occurred to the boy. They get up one morning and there his decapitated body lied, pooling in front of the center chamber, where the lava all resided..." With Todd's muffled giggle, the boy gently kicks him until he silences. "Everyone experienced their pain differently. While Luk was uncaring and Mier hardly noticed the absence... there was a notable stillness to the air of the blonde lovely.

"She cried late at night. She couldn't sleep. She could hardly eat." Hovering over the sleeping Dinu, her face nearly angelic in its stillness, Mier gently streaks a finger down her innocent cheek. "And she starved herself to death next, starved of love from the boy." When he drops her face from its grip she falls aside loudly, snoring so quietly I only notice because her head happens to fall in my lap.

I stare at it awkwardly, my head swimming.

"Dinu was the second to go."

Something about it compels me, and as Mier straightens I lose Dinu's face and find myself staring into him, into swirling, haunting golden orbs and a stoic face weakly emitting the warmth he produces with his story. And, curiously watching me back, he takes my hand and lifts it, and thus lifts me beside him, and he twirls in place once, twice, leading me and then halting slowly.

"The morning after, Dinu's body was gone. Nobody knew where it went and this harmed them greatly, as Dinu was such a _kind, loving, benevolent_ girl that literally everyone was in tears when she died. And if nothing else, you'd want a nice burial service or some dumb thing like that, right? Makes you feel better about it... well unfortunate for them, the smelly corpse had been disposed of."

Mier takes the pause in the air to slope through the roused breaths and slide up so close to me that our noses bump and he whispers into my ear, "Oh Rupert, what was this haunting beauty, the one that slowly murdered the beloved people in our tale?" Bejeweled eyes wink back at me as he recedes, thus slamming into the corner where Luk lies.

"And he was next!" Patting at fluffy, spiny blue hair, Luk grins up at him and takes the hint and collapses, weakly moaning to his "death". He cannot keep the grin off of his cold lips though and toys with it, struggling to let it go as he pretends to die. I completely miss whatever anecdote Mier summons next, the idiotic struggle so mesmerizing I lose myself entirely for a moment there, before nearly bumping into Mier, who, giggling, takes and spins me again.

And there another troubadour joins in on the fun. One of the three remaining, Pauleen steps her bare toes to the hearth and slams into Mier's side, sending the pinkette almost spinning in his puffy, homespun clothes. "And then the snitch diga-died too! He fell into the lava or whatever, and then he was next!"

"Aww, but I'm telling the story, and it sort of ruins it if someone else takes over." Instead of enacting his death, Mier stands again. "Everyone _thought_ Mier died. But he jumped out of the way so he lived."

He does not look where he is going when he steps forward and I watch as he trips over the bloody folds in Todd's dress as my heart—beats madly and I—step in—swoop by—grab him and tug him away, away, away from that fire, my heart pacing wildly in my chest.

"Alright, whatever then." Pauleen rolls her eyes. "Rupert saved you, but in turn he goes." She flicks her wrist, and with my slight grin, I sit to the earth and watch the final "living" souls in the story progress again.

Mier twists his lip. "Yeah, but that completely ruins the way I was planning things, Pauleen. You're screwing up the entire story now." His fingers—longer than I anticipated—jump down to my side with him as he wraps them around my wrist and lifts me back up again.

A strange energy dances betwixt pupils. My heart is burning.

"Naaaw! I'll just take it the way I thought it was coming and it's fine!"

"So you'll make yourself the war hero and be on your merry way?"

War hero? My eyes follow the two but I cannot keep them going long enough to keep track. Pauleen's grin, while childish, holds some level of weight in it, and Mier shakes his head slowly. "Sly girl. May I remind you that's not how a horror story goes?" And there. His fingers tighten. Squeezing me. A zap of feeling overwhelms his face and for one fat, waxing moment I see it crumple into a will of something utterly else... when it flickers and his lips and his cheeks and his forehead glow creamy again.

Pauleen plays at her own grin. The emerald orbs blister. "Well I never said I was playing the role of a horror story, _Mier_." Her lips twist. "And this is when I push the possessed diga-demon he is into the lava himself and end the story my way, my friggin war hero way."

Suddenly all of the buildup inside of him dissipates, like an untied knot, dissolving rain, a wispy sensation of deja vu that etches and etches for the grip of another but so closely misses recollection.

I blink weakly in succession.

"Fine. You win." And he sits, pulling me with him, and we stare up at her. "The war hero makes it out alive. The end."

Mistress applauds quietly from her place. Torn stirs, hissing softly, and Reyna snorts at the affair. I turn back and smile a little back at my mapo queen, and then she claps harder.

What a sweet girl...

Todd continues to stay respectfully dead until he finally raises his head again, cheeky grin and all remaining underneath. "Well! That was something!" His raised voice brings his friend to attention; Pauleen steps over to him and sits beside him, her smug little smile having yet to disappear. "It wasn't very scary though. I mean, it kinda was at one point... but not really. That's okay though! Scary stuff's scary, and we're already locked in here and everything, sooo..." He offers a lopsided shrug. A warmth resonates from him, his cheeks flushed happily.

With a yawn that appears to have been held back for some time, Luk stretches and straightens but does not move from his position. "What?" he asks when glimpsed questionably. "It's warm here where I was sitting and not over where I wasn't! I'm staying here, thanks much." He stretches a second time and, resting his head against the side of the wall, closes his eyes dreamily. A warmth permeates him as well, one not even disturbed when Camri hops into his vacant lap.

Torn has settled now. He tosses a glance toward Todd, one of inquisition, but he does not move from by the fireplace. Dinu has yet to shift either... she must really be sleeping, and heavily so. Oh, if she had known the role she took in our childish little tale... No, not scary at all. Surely... different. I glance back at Mier, his golden orbs dim, his head slightly bowed, emotion burning just at the edges of his being, like when he dipped into his story and spun his words and caught the attentions of everyone in the room.

Quietly I ask him, "How was it supposed to end?" Pauleen, before he, loudly makes a comment that it ended the way it was supposed to end and that she was always going to live it out, because she's the best... and Mier tosses a sly little look under her side when she is not attentive. And his lips curl into a vain, empty smirk.

In a voice much quieter than what I managed, he first squeezes my hand and then tells me. "Somebody was killing everyone else the entire time. In the middle of the night." His lip twitches. "When everyone else was asleep. When _he_ thought he was asleep. Not... a happy sight."

"Oh."

He grimaces. "Yeah."

The way Pauleen took hold of the tale, it is possible the one he speaks of was me. Or himself. Because we was still "alive" until then. And not Pauleen, because it was _he_ specifically. But he does not elaborate either, and such a frightening amount of frigid mirror-like power cloaks his glassy eyes that I decide not to ask him who it was in the end.

I think he is pleased I decline to ask for the answer of the obvious question he left gaping. And it is here he settles, resting by the hearth, and it is here a creamy satisfaction colors him. "At least you know. At least someone knows. That's good."

A part of me wants to ask why.

I think he will not answer me if I do, so I leave that too. And I think he is pleased for this as well.

Pippy rounds from wherever it is he was lying and curls up beside me, his brown body sleek with the flickers of flame darting along it, his big purple eyes mirthful. _Hello, my laddie friend! Snow is quite an interesting sort; I haven't experienced much of it outside of the ancient fiasco Dino got us into! Aaah, quite the troll, he! Heh... But I like it! Can... Can we go outside sometime?_

 _Ah._ Amid stroking him I pause. _Maybe that is what we should focus on right now. Er... in the future, once some of the snow has cleared: training. We remain unsure of what exactly approaches on the horizon, just that it is very well coming... and if you all feel more ready for it, then perhaps you will be... perhaps, somehow, it will assist in the confrontation ahead._ Besides,what else is there for us to do? Telling rampant ghost stories with ambiguous endings... The vivosaurs, though. They may benefit from practicing outdoors. I know... I know they cannot defeat the ancients, not on their own... but practice is good. As—As well as unearthing Aladee, wherever the raja disappeared off to.

 _Oh, I kind of like that idea! But... ohhh, please don't tell him I said this Rupert but pleaaase don't let me train with the scary blue dimetro, he's rather bloodcurdling to me, and... and and and his language is so viiiiiile! Ohhh, my heart hurts when I hear him! Aaaahahhhhh..._ Poor drooping Pippy whimpers, and then sniffles, at this, with his body weakly shivering.

Dislike Torn? He is... quite a stubborn individual. I doubt there are people who do not hold some extreme feeling toward him: like or hate, there is no between with that hotblooded dimetro. _No, oh—ah, Pippy, you have no need to cry!_ Ah. Too late. He is... _so_ emotional... _Pippy, it's alright, I will not force you to be around someone you would not wish to be around._

 _Bbbh... Bbbut what if Torrrrn wants to befriend meee? Unnnnnh... I-I-I dislike this!_

 _Aah, Pippy, Pippy, calm down, it is alright, shh..._ I gently stroke him but there are things in this world much more powerful than the tranquility of acquaintances perhaps-friends. _Torn will not force you into anything, he is reasonable in that sense, do not worry yourself!_

Though how much of any of this he hears I remain unsure. Oh, Pippy.

There is a moment where Gyntis comes out of sleep. He raises his head to glare at the seismo. _Just get over it and fight him if you have to! Wimps are so damn... iffy. Ulhhh._

 _Gyntis! Not everyone's an old fartbag like you!_ Suddenly, a certain sunny marple erupts from a nearby layer of pillows. She trots over toward me, but not before she glares at the f-raptor in question. _He's sweet, okay? Let him be sweet!_ And in a huffy, she sits beside me too.

 _Sunny?_

She just snorts. _Don't look at me like that. He very much is a fartbag at times, the old geezer._ Her eyes are warm. _You know._ And for a moment I think I understand what she means. And it... it feels nice knowing they returned to me all over again... And it is quiet after that, but not a peaceless quiet.

Fiery yet soft, bubbly yet simple, Pauleen starts. "So uh...what diga-do we diga-do now with all this... all this time of ours? Heh, it's like... you only realize how much you can diga-do when you can't diga-do it, trapped or whatever. Ah well." She straightens, her back parallel to the wall it is cradled by. "Who wants to get all emotional and talk about their life? Hey, diga-don't"—she growls at Luk—"diga-don't look at me like that, my turn came and went back when I friggin showed up! Diga-Douche."

"Heeey, that's not very nice," he mutters, gaze warm. "You be that way. Whatever." And when he realizes the volume of his voice has garnered most all of the attention in the room, his cheeks pink and he goes, "Alright, I'm first! It all started when I was around five or so. I'm not much older than Rupert. Round then. He was young. I was young. I think his mom was still alive but I might be wrong, it was awhile ago... no, she was alive, I remember seeing it—hahaaaaaa ignore that! So anyways I was taken in and now I'm messed up."

"Hey, really?" squeaks Todd. "No way! Me too!" Of course, the severity of whatever he is agreeing with is questionable but I don't wish to correct him. I stay by the fire and I rest accordingly as he goes on to relay this-one-time-when-he-raided-a-candy-store. Not very climatic, or on topic, but it would be expected of him, and somehow comforting with that.

It goes on. Something about the mood or the affability unseals long-closed lips, and it is easier to speak again, easier to relay stories about a time ago. Pauleen recalls her digadig grandfather—and this girl, Jkonna, both whom I think visited once—and why she left them in the first place: she was bored. There, well, there have been better reasons. I never knew it was something as ridiculously simple as that, how she came all the way to Caliosteo from an island I hardly remember, just the imprint of how far away it was. But I guess that is all it takes, yes? Without her presence I doubt Todd would be his open, chipper self today, and I doubt I would be in better spirits now without her powerful, bubbly self having joined us, even now, and especially so.

Mier dabbles in a piece about his parents, angry and stoic folks that were almost comically so; Luk reminds everyone that he had it the worst because Rupert's-the-biggest-stick-in-the-mud- _ever_ -especially-when-he-was-younger and Todd agrees but then he does not and goes _no-no-no-_ Luk-I-had-it-worst-cuz-my-parents-are-psychopaths and Luk cannot argue with that until he goes but-Rupert's-dad-is-too-and-he-actually-killed-someone and they could go on but they both sort of realize the morbid direction their conversation is steering toward and unlike the premonition all soon-to-be-shipwrecked boats face they drop the topic and turn back.

With this silence, Torn takes it a stage to plant his ever-egoistic speech into, declaring that he is the one with the most to complain about. Trikko swipes at his face and he silences but for angry little whispers shot back at the tricera who ignores his complaints wholly. Camri assures that he is the one who has captivated the entire room and, well, nobody agrees with that except maybe the few he has managed to charm.

Lively.

Time passes warmly in the company of jovial words. Of good people in perhaps not the best position but a position they will work out of, not alone. And despite the icy fortitude that is faced, there is not hatred with it but acceptance, simple and gentle and a kind of acceptance taken by different people, grouchy people, happy people, and somehow makes it unanimous and... I like to think kind.

Eventually Sunny perks up to me. _What's with the funny look on your face, sir stick-in-the-mud?_

 _My goodness, you and your attitude._ She smirks back at me. _It's nice, I guess. Nicer than I thought it would be._

 _Heh. People? Yeah, I guess. Never thought_ you'd _say that though, you and your obsession with solitude._ Before I can remind her, she rolls ocean-kissed eyes. _Yeah, yeah, 'it is not solitude if there is but one person there'. But it's not now, so stop arguing._ So I do. She grins at that too. _Since when did this guy accept what another person had to say?_ And she looks about ready to laugh, her face open an warm and so... surprised.

She is different when she is not shy. But not... a bad different.

 _I like people like that!_ Pippy pipes gleefully, _they're my favorite! Yes, perhaps their opinions are rather thorny but that's alright, I don't mind!_

Sunny snorts, then. _What a softy pushover, you! You're so big you can tank practically anything, and while slow your power is massive, and here you are awkwardly giggling about the tiny things in life! What are you, seismo?_

 _I'm happy!_ And he says it, so giddy, so flushed, that how can one contradict such a thing?

Well. There are always others, I suppose. _I'd much rather be suave than happy, but I am so great that it appears I have been blessed with both, so what can I say? Oh, seismo. Never worry. I will always be here for your tears._ I am afraid Camri does not understand what the little brown sauropod means. Then again, he seems to have a knack with that, only hearing what he wishes to hear, so it is to be expected from he.

 _Yeeehh... Camri, I'm afraid there is already somebody great enough for my tears! I'm sorry! Please forgive me, but I met her long before you and she's so..._ A sudden wave of serious concentrations overtakes the seismo. _I like her!_ Saying it like there are no words for the mysterious she's qualities.

 _Is she nice?_ murmurs Sunny.

 _Is_ she _suave, now?_ And Gyntis chortles at his joke. _I wouldn't be surprised. The pushovers tend to get the good ones. Innit that right,_ Rupert _? Lookit your girl, huh? Gahaha... aaaah, some things never change..._ And his head tilts and he looks back upon a past life that must be so clouded by countless memories. Tessa, who unearths from a blanket beside him, tosses her head and smirks.

 _No, some things never change._ She leaves it at that, but she eyes Pippy when she says it.

He blushes. _I-I-I guess not! Y-Yeah! Her name's Droplet and she's... I-I like her a-a lot, s-s-so don't worry if she's nice or not! I-I think she can be nice! Yes indeed, rather nice in-indeed!_ He leaves it at that, but he is smiling ever so slightly... so I think that is what matters in the end.

Tessa grunts. _I always hated Droplet for the longest time._ Thrashing her tail, she mutters, _See, the three of us more or less grew up in the same niche, before our first fossilization and everything... and well, Droplet's just not nice, and Poppy is, and it's infuriating, that little rapscallion getting exactly what she wanted, sly little... But it's fine. I think I'm over it now._

 _You say that with your face all scrunched up like a raisin!_ Sunny giggles. _Oh, childish crushes, do they ever stain one's life like only the strongest of dyes!_ Judging by the mirth in her gaze, she must not have found it, but I think she is pleased with this as well, independent and prideful Sunny. Powerful when she is not shy.

 _I rather like scrunched up raisins_ , offers Gyntis to no one but himself.

 _Shut up, you bag of bones._ Tessa sticks out her tongue at him, and, in huffy retort, he does the same back. _Raisins are gross!_ But that does not stop her from scrunching her face, especially in the eyes of the f-raptor. He eventually snorts into coughing, haughty laughter and looks away, allowing her to sag in some form of victory, but by the look in his eye he must have given it freely.

Torn jolts in belayed reaction. _Ffffffuck, why the hell are we talking about relationships! I-I-IIIII am not in one and I... It's not like I wanna be or something!_

He was only as skilled as Dina at hiding his emotions. But he tries, unlike her. Oh, Torn.

In between bites of conversation, how I wish I could focus on more than one throng, the others continue amiable chatter, and as it dies again, ebbing and flowing like a mighty sea... I eventually bring up my own little memories, one by one by one, tiny fragments of things, little scraps I always held onto that I could never let go of, as ugly or as awful as they were. As much as I wanted to. So I am hesitant, and I stutter—o-often—when I dig up the little hole in my heart where all of these things go, and I show them reluctantly and tuck them away soon after, but I put them out there and I do it all myself.

And it makes me feel a little better afterward.

Soon after, when we finally rise, the icy grip of snow has begun to thaw on the surroundings, and with the help of powerful vivosaurs we wrench the blasted door open and little icy tears of melting snow drip into the entranceway. Out in the atmosphere the snow bites at skin and chills one's bones yet pumps blood and opens eyes all at once, and my breath leaves me reeling in the air, tiny white puffs like ghosts. Sunny escapes into the snow first, shuffling through like waves, gliding, streaming, then flicking her tail and sending a great lump into Camri's overly proud face. Mistress wakens and plows through happily, sending herself Torn's way and causing him to screech as he darts away, away, away.

 _Dammit, don't touch meeeeeeee!_

And I watch them, and I am quiet.

It is a peaceful affair. Loud... yet quiet. Commotion... yet calming. It is a strange affair, and I stand there as if mystified by the frigid heat of the moment.

On my own, for some time. As Todd attempts to order Camri and gives up, sending his goyle to clobber the flaunting krona. As Pauleen yells at Sivan who goes to rest, melting all snow about him into puddles that soak into his fur, then steam and curl about him. As Luk slams into Pauleen then and as they both topple on top of Sivan and Reyna lifts her tail and drops it, a great heap of snow tumbling atop all three of them, and then Sivan is not happy at all.

When I turn, who is it other than the golden-eyed boy himself? A tiny grin curls his lip, eyes narrowed but bright, warm entities. "Do you think, even if any of them focus, that we'll stand a chance in the future anyways?" His brow raised as he asked this, and he watches me coyly.

"Ah... there is a chance," I mumble, suddenly bashful, eyes at the ground, "and I like to believe that if there is a chance, perhaps one of them will pull through. Besides... I have never defeated an ancient, not truly. Dina did... once. One that... had possessed _me_. So... I want to believe that now is my turn. That I will... figure it out.

Nervous, I bite my lip. "I know what you said. There is no way, so far as we know. But... I have to try. I... I _need_ to."

"Pff." When I look up, there he is, fingers over his lips, laughing. "You're too much, Rupert. That's all I have to say about you." Shaking his head, grinning feebly. "Ohhh, too much. You and Dina must make quite the pair, both of you... ahhh..." And he leaves it at that, his gaze gone elsewhere, the smile turning.

When he looks back toward me, his face has grown a little heavier, eyes a little sadder. "And what if it's impossible, the whole lot of it?"

"Then"—And he grins when I sputter, trying to form what he must know I am about to say—"Then I will... commit to the impossible."

"So you'll be impossible too, huh? Hah! Oh, man..." And then he looks away again, and a strange air has taken hold of him, lighted his features, exaggerated his grin... a... a _giddiness_ coloring him. "You're funny, Rupert. I like that."

I look away, stepping toward him. Slightly, hesitantly. "Thank you." My cast makes big, awkward motions in the snow, the cast he built for me, the little smiling Dina on it the picture he painted for me.

When a roar splits the horizon.

 _ggGGGGYRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH_

Before I know what I am doing I grab his hand and step near him. My fingers are cold... and shaking. That split moment of giddiness is lost and his features harden as he looks over me. "Aaah, another ancient... and so close? Wait... wait, what's..." I notice his eyes widen. "No, that's... Rupert, look out." He pulls to the left some and I stumble after him and not seconds later a body of snow crashes into the earth, lopsided and soaking.

Soon after, out from the blob, a tiny face pokes out. Gaunt and lined and... and I realize, my stomach clenching, oh, I recognize that face, oh, help me, I know it too well. These bloodcurdling purple eyes force themselves into my face, her lips drawn, teeth bare, hair a mess of orange curls about her, breathing heavy, so heavy and shallow and weak I mistake it for my own, it is so present.

"Zoazoa," I whisper in a flush of heat.

She snarls. I step back and bump into Mier and then my face heats all over again. At the sound of her voice—her name punctured into brittle air—Todd rounds over by me, and Pauleen surfaces behind him, and Luk to our side, and the vivosaurs tumble up and around her. A circle of creatures, of powerful creatures, and as terrifying as it might look it is not until I hear the door slam open that my heart freezes.

" _Shit_ " spits into the same brittle air and Dinu's feet go _slurch slurch slurch_ pounding forcefully through the snow, nosing in front of everyone, sitting in front of the feral girl and she snorts. "What're you doing here?" So calmly. So... angry, and yet levelheaded, that I think she scares Zoazoa as much as Zoazoa scared us.

As far as her snarling got with us she moves nowhere with Dinu, and the standstill continues until my cousin stirs again. " _Please_. Speak _legibly_. I can't understand a _damn_ word when you sound like that."

I never heard her curse all that much in her life. She did, fleetingly, sometimes, but nothing audible enough to comprehend, nothing so bold. And that chilling voice, with steely calm...

She must be furious beyond understanding.

She wanted to kill her. Probably wants to, right now, right at this very moment most especially.

Never did my heart beat so hard for my cousin.

The snarls give out. Tiny little things... tears slip down the gaunt, rippling face. Emotion after emotion pound her and she shakes, abandonment tearing through wide eyes, and then in a low and husky warble she mumbles, "Cold."

Her voice... it—it sounds so _closely_ to _hers_. But so horribly, monstrously different all at once. It is difficult to breathe and I nearly miss what Dinu tells her in return, my head spins so greatly.

"Yeah, well. It's pretty cold in a mound of snow, isn't it?"

The meek, tiny Zoazoa musters but a nod.

She glances back at me, my cousin, her sharp eyes dazzling with a hatred I never knew before. "Mier. Is there spare room in your cabin?"

With his wordless nod, she glances back at the ancient now inside of the body of a girl she once knew. "And there you go. Was it that _hard_ to ask?

I think there are multiple people rather uneasy with this acquisition, but Dinu just glares into the eyes of the most vengeful—none other than the dimetro himself—and tells him exactly what she thinks. "The person inside of that body is not the _bitch_ we all _know_ and _love_. But if that body gives out then they're all screwed, huh? And I _promised_ she doesn't _die_. Much as I'd rather otherwise. Al _right_? I'm not even agreeing with myself, but just because you hate it too doesn't mean it didn't just happen." She gets up. "Get a move on." Grabs Zoazoa by her little wrist and yanks her in the direction of the cabin front door.

"Are we going or are we going?"

And what else is there to do?

 **Yeaaaah, Dinu's violent xD But! But she kept her promise like a good girl! I mean how good a girl Dinu actually is is debatable but she at least did that xD**

 **Everyone's just like oh man Dinu's terrifying get out of the way here comes the force to be reckoned with  
She is the almighty cavalry xD**

 **So yeah, here's one of the biggest turning points so far! What's it all meaaan? Haha, if you look closely enough you might be able to tell x3**


	21. Ja: An Old Lady's Thoughts

**Hello again! Here marks the second half of the story! The first 20 chapters and now the last 20, hahaha. In this first half we had different arcs and stuff too and Rupert actually made friends and I'm sure there are ongoing things between the twenty and the twenty but I like "splitting" it in half in my head because it makes me feel more accomplished xD writing is hard**

 **Anyways what better way to start chapter 21 than with anger management herself?**

 **Jkonna: oOOHHH IT'S THE COOL KID'S TURN**

 **Dino: -snorts- anger management**

 **Jkonna: SHUT UP, IT'S AN HONOR WELL EARNED**

 **Dino: aaanger managemeennnntttttt pffffbbbb**

 **Jkonna: stop hurting my feelinggggsssssss**

 **Raptin: you both are meek children**

 **Dino: it's been like ten whole chapterssss buuuuhhhhh**

 **Raptin: -sighs-**

 **Jkonna: well at least we get our diga-deserved attention now -harrumphs-**

 **Dino: sorta**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 21: An Old Lady's Thoughts

 _Jkonna_

I hate water. I think I've let everyone in my immediate area know this so many times I've practically tattooed it to the back of their heads and smashed it through their skulls and when they close their eyes all they see are little imprints of Jkonna's ill-fated screaming, because obviously people _see_ sounds. But, like, saying it once diga-doesn't cover my burning hatred of it, so I have to keep letting them know, just to make sure they get a good fistful of my feelings every once in awhile. It's mandatory. Like breathing.

Except maybe a little more important than breathing, of _course_. Excuse _me_ , what else is more important than my emotional state? At least, that's what I like to pretend sometimes. We all know it's not true because that there is Foster's job, making sure I never forget that I am a literal speck of human being in a world absolutely stuffed with human beings, but I can diga-dream, and he's a jerk anyways, what the heck diga-does he really know?

 _I know a lot more than you do,_ he butts in. _But it's so booooring trying to tell you much of anything because, like the child you are, you simply stop up your ears and scream in your head and then nobody can tell you anything because it didn't happen, not if you didn't hear it._ Yeah, he's freaking lovely: see, there's a _reason_ I diga-don't listen, it's because he sounds like the nasal scraping of a big gloomy rainstorm out of nowhere. Foster is the epitome of bore.

At least, that's what I like to tell him. He's a special one for sure, that futabi of mine: picky and rancid and rude beyond rude, not to mention picky—oh wait, what diga-do you know, I already did: see, because he _really_ is. That long-necked and thick-finned and snout-faced weirdo, ugh, he can be _such_ a bore.

In a tone borderline amusement, he comments, _Oh, but you can be quite the bore as well. Nobody wants to listen to your rants, Jkonna, least of all the vivosaurs forced to partake in them by the evil Jkonna voice in their heads._ To mark the occasion, he goes and yawns, stretching the vocals out just to make sure I get it, every last morsel.

 _How kind of you,_ I simper back, and he chortles quietly.

He's a special one for sure, huh...

 _Yeah, and I'm special too!_ I turn and look who it is, smiling like the diga-dork he is right in my face: the very best friend to end all best friends who puts up with my moods with the strength of, like, _three_ Fosters, or maybe four.

Grinning, I pull back and slap that idiot across the face. He winces playfully, pushing me back, and before I know it I've splayed all over the sands and now there's particles in my nose and in my poor, poor abused hair. Oh, and everywhere else too. But that's whatever. Dino steps up toward me and I sneeze in his face and with a yelp he diga-darts back where it's safe behind the sandcastle I molded and he screwed up earlier and diga-didn't freaking apologize for.

I stay there for a moment. Staring at the sky. Big, puffy white clouds in a pool of blue, never-ending like the stupid, stupid water we've been treading for however long it's been now. Dino was keeping track of the islands but I made him forget by shouting random numbers when he counted so we have no idea just how much time has passed, no idea at all.

But that's okay. I diga-don't care, and I diga-don't think he diga-does either, or if he diga-did, then he stopped eventually. Raptin was pretty mad though. I think he's still passed out on the shore, poor guy, we so exhaust him.

It's funny, remembering that he wanted to be here himself and nervously tried to ask us in that angsty Raptin sorta way, shifting his hopes and diga-dreams as blame on diga-Dynal's shoulders. Gah, what a diga-dork. He and Dino both, huh.

Too many idiots on this island. Gonna kill me if I think too hard about it.

My eyes start to get all hot and fuzzy, that sun's way too bright, and when I get all spacey like this things start popping in my head that I usually diga-don't think too hard on because when I diga-do... well, I just diga-don't.

But it was nice of Dino... it was nice of him...

Diga-Dang it, he's too much. I sit up with a huff, slapping my hands on the piles of sand in front of me, my hair out in big, mauled tangles of red fingers. My skin's warm to the touch, all this sun on top of it, and my body's soft beneath the light of the world, the sun pumping diga-down on us like nothing else. Little crystalline beads of sweat casually streak across Dino's figure, collapsed near me in the sand—much more freaking elegant-looking if I may so point out—stupid—and he's smiling at the sky, his face diga-dazzling.

Too nice. Diga-Does that make him stupid?

I wonder. He wasn't always so giving, honestly. Anyone who meets him know diga-doesn't know the half of it: oh, they _think_ he's such a nice-mannered little scallywag but let me say— _let me say_ they know nothing unless they've seen him screw up in front of girls he had hardly an interest in, toying with feelings he never knew about before. He diga-doesn't act serious enough to make up for the prince he is, but he's changed, hasn't he, since diga-Dynal, since diga-Dina. Since... responsibility, I guess, and consequences.

With a pout, I kick my left foot from its premature grave and sprinkle little sand bits on his face. Then he sneezes too, but not before my foot scuttles just out of reach. He giggles without moving, that diga-dork. He's diga-dusted in sand too, musty bits spread in that wild hair of his, stuck in his scales—ah, turd, that looks itchy—and he's still smiling that stupid Dino smile, all peaceful and happy as the world goes into a state of who-even-knows around him.

It started happening not so long ago. Nothing much, oh, nothing much: pieces of rumors, guesses, odd diga-dreams... But I think something's up. Stupid Thomas and Iggy, Dino says they won't talk much, they're exhausted from something or another, and that makes me think; they must feel it too, right? The charge of energy in the air.

Sometimes I'm a little scared.

I made Dino promise to protect me, though, so I'm sure it'll be fine. At least, that's what I tell myself when I'm scared. And that's what he tells me too, that warm smile on his face, that we'll figure it out, it's okay that we got lost, and anyways it's okay if we're scared sometimes. I swear, he tries way too hard. Diga-Dummy tries way too hard sometimes, pleasing people. Apologizing.

Ah, gosh, I diga-didn't get meaner, diga-did I? Aw, probably.

It takes me a moment to notice the water before it comes smashing into my face. I glance over, pulling diga-droopy locks of hair out of my face, and there's he and that stupid smile. I scoff, kicking back at him, sending sand sticking all over my legs, and of course he notices and he just laughs at me, oh Dino. Man, sometimes I want to hate him, but I've known him too long for that, and so has he for me. So what else can I diga-do but stand up and shove him into the ocean?

I perch over the edge, wiping my sandy hands into the waters, and when his diga-drenched face pokes out from the waves, I just smile and wave. He fashions a smirk and grabs one hand, effectively diga-dunking me.

Man, screw you too.

I scuttle out and there the overpowered one greets me, her body shimmering with heat so that if I stand close enough to that ridiculously pooling warmth—as overbearing as it is—it peels off my water like a second layer and there you go, I win. As he tries to waddle out of the ocean I push at Nodopi's pink body and tell my maia to get a move on before he approaches her, and she gives that creepily prim and proper giggle and starts off toward our other diga-dinaurian who I think is starting to sport quite the sickly sunburn. Ooh, that's no good. Probably should've brought him up or something earlier.

"Jkkie, you're not faaair!" Dino calls as he charges at me and forces me into a hug and then I'm wet all over again. From somewhere in my once-again-sopping pocket, Foster chortles. "See, even the futabi's on my side, and he never takes sides!" _He_ complains and as the diga-dinaurian he diga-doesn't need any clothes that get plastered on _my_ sides, thank you very much. My tunic's a much heavier brown and it's sticking to my thighs... ugggggh, unpleasant emotions... "Hey, no squirming! You can't leave until you apologize!"

Smirking, I hiss, "Diiiiga-Diiiiiiinooooo!" And then he knows I'm joking. "You apologize _more_ than enough for me! See, we work so well because you diga-do all the good diga-deeds and then I get away with, like, foraging through people's trash cans and stuff!"

"Eeww, Jkkie, that's disgusting! You do not forage through people's trash cans and stuff! Ladies never purge themselves so hastily!" He flatters himself, fluttering a hand like a fan in his face. I stick my tongue out.

"You're the lady and we all know it, digadig."

He's already let go of me. He never had much of a will, that diga-dummy. I still remember that first time he and Rosie had a spat and he hadn't the heart to storm off so she ended up diga-dragging him around the place, getting him tangled up in her problems and the vivosaurs she'd lost. And I diga-don't diga-do that—just—just saying—for the record. Just saying.

Slowly, accentuating, he winks. Those eyebrows lower. "Huuhuu." I slap him again after that, it's too much, and he winces again but not in a hurt way, more an exaggeration of the fact that I diga-didn't. Ahh, is he turning me soft too? That _turd_.

"Seriously, though." And he softens again. Like he diga-does now, like he always diga-does. "I'm happy you're feeling better now." Quietly, gently, way too softly. "I was worried. I thought maybe if we kept going like this you'd get really hurt or something. So, uh, in a way, it's kinda nice that we got lost, since that means we had to slow down... and I think you needed that, so."

Oh, screw me, I nearly have to stop myself from slapping him away. No, if anything, I've gone hard, hard like stone, hard like those people with jaded hearts or whatever. Not that I have one. Maybe I diga-did, but this _stupid_ had to go and mess that up. Make me care about him. Ugh.

Not really. It's nice.

Kinda. Shut up. Guh.

"Well, you promised you'd protect me, huh? I guess it's only natural." And I think that makes him feel good about himself, me bringing that up, so I let him bask in that for a moment. "Yeah, um. I guess it's not so bad. Water. Sometimes. But not too much. Ulh..." When I stick my tongue out again, he knows I'm at least partly joking, and he grins again.

For awhile I thought the orange face and all the scales was pretty weird. His eyes are the same slate gray, and his hair's not so different—a little diga-darker with that bizarre orange streak on the side—but his body changed a lot, back when we realized he was a diga-dinaurian. I think that's when everything really got diga-different. Because the lies he fed himself as a kid had been broken... and he was left with a whole new world full of stuff. A lot of bad stuff too. A lot of... hurtful stuff, too. Dino.

It's... It's not _that_ weird, though. It was just diga-different. I mean, how the heck's the poor boy supposed to feel? He just gets this whole chunk of junk lobbed straight at his skull: he's a _prince_ his diga-dad's _alive_ his sister _might not be_ his mom's _gone_ like holy turd that's not nothing, especially not to this old pansy of mine.

He likes feeling like the strong one, so I let him off feeling like he is usually.

"Oh, uh!" Oh yeah, Raptin. My eyes skitter over and I wince. "Yeah, uh. The real guardian's scales are getting fried over there, buddy; we should probably diga-do something about it." Besides, our hostess gets all nervous if we're gone for too long. People tend to get that way when you splat on their porch in the middle of the night in the middle of a _storm_ that _this guy_ said we could _outrun_.

He diga-doesn't need to know that I step on his foot on purpose. He can just tuck in the fact I diga-didn't say nothing about it, like I diga-didn't know it myself, so he keeps it to himself, the diga-dork, and we go off to save Raptin from his unfortunate fate once he's like at least halfway submerged in it. The scales that were always so pristine and blue, a soupy diga-dark viscous mix that kinda reminded me of a night sky evenly poured into him's got this angry red look to it. His stomach, once yellow, boasts a sickly orange-peel color, one that makes my own stomach crawl in relief for myself and guilt for him.

Raptin himself? Asleep, I think. Still. I aim to kick at his face and wake him up and screw up his already-sunburned face a little more, but stupid lousy Dino grabs my arm last second and I overbalance and kick myself onto the sand. "Owwww! Whyyyyy diga-do you have to have a coonsciieeeenncee?"

He ignores me, he and his good conscience, gently poking Raptin's side and immediately forcing the poor diga-dinaurian awake. A scowl scrapes his lip. "Dino..." His brow furrows; the effect of it leaves him breathless. "Dino, why? I was rather appreciative of my undisturbed... undis... ahh... D-Dino, wh-what did you do to me!" Finally taking note of his angry reddened state.

"I-I didn't do anything!" squeaks my best friend, and then Raptin glares right at me. "N-Nooo, it wasn't Jkkie either! No—stop— _Rapty—_ stop that—I promise for once this is actually true! Ahhh, come onnnnn..." With a groan, he grabs Raptin's arm.

Bad idea. Oh, turd, _bad_ idea—I have to look away, it's such a bad idea, my giggles stifled by the hiss that comes out of our friend's tightly-locked lips.

"Was I... c-cursed? Who cursed me? Oh, it was not that disastrous nasaur of yours, was it? Where is she? We should teach her a—"

Dino's pitying stare causes the diga-dinaurian to choke on his words, swallowing unevenly. That furrowed brow diga-deepens, like, tenfold. "Sorry, my friend, but I'm afraid this was all self-imposed. Hoo..." A weak giggle, and Dino steps back. The glaring sun peeps past his shoulder and Raptin narrows his eyes, his scowl weakening at the wonder of this _curse_ he's put upon himself.

When the imploring look approaches me, I sort of have to tell him: those big abandoned eyes are haunting. "Sunburn. Gosh, what diga-don't you guys have? Stay out in sun too long"—I point a few times at the fat ball in the air—"and sun burn body bad, digadig! So bad you diga-die!"

His face noticeably pales.

"Oh, nonono!" Dino steps in front of me. I cross my arms, pouting into myself. Not that anyone else sees it. Shut up Foster. "You don't die, you do _not_ die, don't listen to her! It just hurts a lot and stuff starts peeling and it sucks but you don't freaking die from it. Just, uh, try to avoid it for next time." Wincing, my best friend takes a moment to step back and accidentally lands his foot on a bit of my hair. He scatters when I scream back at him.

Dino looks back at me. I mumble, "You got to abuse his innocence while he's still got it, man... that makes it fun..." And then he shakes his head. He's smiling though. He can't diga-deny that.

On that unfortunate note, Raptin lifts himself from the sand, moving as little as he can manage. We all start back toward the humble place we've been staying, Dino in the middle—effectively cutting me off after my little, ah, "abuse his innocence" thing—and a wince strains Raptin's face only every time he takes a step, poor thing. I haven't gotten many sunburns before and I diga-don't think Dino has either—I mean, look at us—me with my diga-dark skin, he's literally orange and black—but our pale and fair friend was only asking for it, huh. Especially since diga-dinaurians only got, like, no time in the sun at all in their stone sleep thingy and who even knows what their old planet was like, because I certainly diga-don't.

"Hey, remember the mural?" Ah, takes me back. I may not know the planet but I'm the one who found the mural that diga-depicted the lost people of the diga-dinaurians after losing their planet and coming here however long ago it was. The one that had Dino on it, the reason we even figured out he's a freaking prince.

Giggling, Dino bumps me as we walk. "The one you were obsessed with once you found it? Yeah, course. Dad nearly clobbered me that first time and you weren't even there to witness it, you were so busy staring at it. Wow..." He yawns. "That was sooooo far away from here."

Well. "Pfff. That's not what I thought you were gonna say."

"Mmh. That's my specialty." He bows for effect and nearly trips. Oh, Dino. Not that I help matters by stepping on his feet every few steps or anything. Hmm. I diga-don't go out of my way much.

Foster rouses at this. _Maybe you should more? I don't know, just a suggestion. I'm just saying that it's likely people would appreciate you more if you tried harder, but who knows? Maybe it's random chance._ He accentuates that, _raaandooommmmm chaaanccceeee_ , dragging it out as far as those stubby little syllables can go.

Makes me laugh. I choke, pretending it was all because his words are revolting. Of course, he diga-doesn't believe me, but I like to give him more options. _Course. Everything's random chance when you think about it: life, death, friends, vivosaurs._ And I leave off there, letting him take his little hint.

 _That, Jkonna, is an incredibly depressing way of looking at things, one that I think I won't indulge myself in, no way. It's too... ulhhhg._ He just shudders, the buffoon.

His angst wakes the acro, who shoulders her massive gold body toward my feelings. _Are we talking about stupid things again? Jkonna, how often does this sort of thing have to happen? Can we just... not? Y'know?_ But it's not Bliss's fault she's not into it: it's in her name.

Yeah, I'm not very good at names either. But I'm better than Dino, who tried to name his krona the idiot Sharp. Like, Sharp? What kind of a _loser._..

 _I'm just practical_ , I mutter, shrugging the two of them off. _Someone has to uphold that role, right? Dino obviously can't, he's too much of a pansy wimp. And you're all idiots, and Raptin is currently sunburned, so I'm best fit. Besides, I already have an astounding sense of realism, diga, so leave me be._ They diga-don't leave me be, like angry moms.

 _Being practical is no excuse whence you waste your life worrying everything to_ realism _shreds. Bah._

Bliss huffs. Her jagged figure adds an effect that some softy like Foster could never hope to appeal to. _Foster absolutely sucks at saying anything in the right context, but he more or less has a point._ The futabi rolls his eyes.

I think they're mostly messing with me, the stupid diga-dorks. At least, that's how I take it as. That's how I am. Bliss is the one who got so freaked out about all the changes that bombarded our lives back those few months ago she literally started speaking in prose. It was messed up.

 _Well whatever._ They both sort of get puffy at my attitude, but eh. _Neither of you are Morie and she's the only one who's even remotely good at scolding. And she and Bomba stayed at the cave with Shell, so you can stop now. It's not like I'm gonna listen anyways. Stop that. Digadig, geez._

Nodopi has only one comment to add toward the entire conversation: _You guys overthink things way too often. It's either immensely overwhelming or underwhelming, I'm not sure which, but it's tiring and I'm rather fine with staying to the surface of things._ Yeah okay, you be that way, you stuck-up maia.

As we enter the jutting lip of the cavern, Raptin's face eases. Shadows are nice, also the cool stone floor's diga-doing him some mega favors. Shell's up and around here somewhere. She has to be the weirdest old lady I've ever met, but she's also an old lady, so she's got more than enough things going on in that old lady head of hers and she diga-doesn't need to add Big Weirdo to that list of old lady things. Heck, I diga-don't even know, like I'm an old lady. Heck, like I'll _live_ to be an old lady.

Actually, I diga-dunno, maybe.

Ehhhh, probably not. I'm not putting so much hope into it. Besides, then my skin'll get all weird lumpy wrinkly and I diga-dunno if I can diga-deal with that...

I think I'm gonna stop thinking about it now. Nodopi's right, I need to chill.

 _Ohhhh, Nodopi's the one who gets the friggin praise?_

Oh my gosh. _Shut up, Bliss. You have bad enough ideas as it is._ She gets all whiny on me and I shut her out. She's very much not the realistic one. I learned awhile ago it's pointless to try and get something useful out of her.

I'm kidding. Mostly. Sort of.

Yeah, I'm just gonna stop now.

Dino is literally my opposite at this and I have no idea why he likes me, I'm just gonna be honest here.

He makes me laugh, though... I glance up at him, smiling slightly, and he grins back, his eyes coming to me like he knew the moment I thought it that I was gonna look. At least, that's how I wanna look at it like. That makes me feel happy.

 _Realism_ , hisses Bliss.

Once we retreat into the depths of the cave, its stony yellow walls—limestone? the one with the sand, oh, diga-duh, probably _sand_ stone, huh—reflective with the light that comes in, bouncing playfully from wall to wall to smooth hallway onward. It's not all that far in, and there's not much in here to look at, but hey, better than sunburns. Off in the corner there lies a few pallets and some blankets tossed around haphazardly. A table sits off to one side, all grand and old and stuff, wooden surface still shiny and well-cared. There's stools and some junk too, further back, however it is Shell spends her time, but I'm not gonna pry, that's rude... then again, I'm pretty rude as it is.

Yeah, but _Shell._

She probably had a better name once. She says she forgot it, and she likes shells, they're pretty, so that's her name more or less. Dino and I once tried to guess her age, back when we met her and she was still out of earshot—we settled around five hundred and I wish it was a joke but man, Shell though. From her little area toward the back she summons herself, the sun-bleached-blonde-hair and wrinkled golden skin and wizened old gray eyes that make me feel like there was once color in them but life sucked it all out.

I feel like she's my grandma when I look at her the right way, but then again I bet everyone feels that way about her. She's just one of those people.

"Aaah, so the youuung adddven-too-rers have returned to me once mooore."

And, oh, that's right, her old lady voice. It's soft and flaky and I think of taffy when I hear her, all stretchy and warbling, and rambling, like an old voyager, and then it starts to sound all old and warm and a little foreign with this weird tip of an accent and then I think I'm listening too hard, but I just get so caught up in it.

At _least_ five hundred.

Dino giggles, like she said something funny. Heck, I diga-dunno, maybe she diga-did. Was that supposed to be a joke? "Course, Shell! I mean, we can't rightly leave without telling you first! You're too good for us!"

Everything gets so soft-looking when she's around. Makes me nauseated. Dino's voice lowers, never missing a trip of excitement, and even the cavern beneath Shell's old lady feet feels almost... pastel. Her wrinkled fingers perched over softly-giggling lips, she shakes her head and murmurs, "Oh, no, it's just I'd forget if you tollld me."

"Ohhh, Shell! It's okay, digadig!" I squeak. I can't help it, she's got that sweet old lady look in her wizened gray eyes, and she's all diga-delicate and diga-dainty, and it makes my heart happy to be around her. Even Raptin's less sullen, and that's saying something with his endless sea of sunburns.

She takes this in next, sucking in a breath of burnt scales. "Lad, you look like you're in a pinch of pain there." She titters, shaking her head, curly white curls springing about her head. "What was it? Fapty, right? Fapty, we need to get you looked at. Here, I know I have some aloe around here somewhere... mmmmh..." Wandering off, we're left in peaceful semi-diga-darkness and Raptin's quiet muttering.

It's my fault. I'm the one who introduced us. Raptin tried to fix me but then I countered with something else and now he's cursed.

Shell returns with a tidy jar brimming full of this slick green goo and plants it in Raptin's burnt hands before remembering and gently takes it back as his face splits and I think some of the sunburns diga-do with it. "Oh, my bad, Fapty! You know how these old gears work in one's brain." She pats her noggin with one hand, then sets it to work, fiddling with the lid. Having succeeded in wrenching it open—carelessly tossing the lid into the diga-dark where it ends up being lost—she spreads the gel into her hand and giggles politely as it makes _sqish_ noises, Raptin's face getting a little more grotesque with each one. "Aaaalright."

Palms out, she splats them across his chest first.

I think I'm never gonna see a face as good as this poor diga-dinaurian's reaction to the old lady's goo hands literally right smack there. And then he tries to pretend he diga-didn't react, and of course that goes as badly as he diga-didn't want it to, this poor blushing maniac, so we leave him with tears in his eyes. Dino and I egg him on as he has aloe slathered about his body in a strangely methodical structure: spread goo on fingers, splat against Raptin, repeat.

His reactions get a little weaker with each trial, but that diga-doesn't make any of them any good to miss. That probably makes him feel worse. Well whatever, _good_. For me. Hah.

Eventually Dino tires. Man, he and Thomas and Iggy all, huh. Patting my head, he mumbles something and struts off toward the pallets and flops over on one of the two squished close together.

Shut up. Best friends can sleep in the same bed. That's not weird.

As I watch him curl up beneath the little old-lady-smelling blankets, I think about that a little bit, diga-drawing off from poor Raptin's diga-demise. It hits me in little bullets, thoughts like diga-droplets hurtling through the rain, splatting against the earth in jolts. Because of course he's tired: two of his vivosaurs are constantly sapped by some creepy ancient force. And there's not just one gigantic ancient by his side. No. No, I should've taken up Thomas after he possessed me, accidental or no, but... gaaah. I feel bad when I think about it.

He must feel bad about things too, though. Right? And then, like, if he brought them up to _me_... I wouldn't want him to worry about it. Gah. People are frustrating. I'm frustrating—oh, scratch that, I am a holy turd mess. A part of me wants to giggle again when I glance back at Raptin, but I realize he's not there anymore. I stare back where I swear that poor burnt boy stood when a slight shadow crosses me and Shell takes to my side.

"Dearest, are you searching for the other one? Which one? Where did the other one go..?" Her voice whistles with her esses, little bumps in her words, and her wrist toils in the air until she catches Dino snoozing. "Ah, he's back to the gallows, eh." Soft chortle. "S'alright. He's a big one. Does lotsa things, don't he. So's the other other one, the one who burnt his poor soul—I sent him out to stand by the breeze, to help dry, but not outside, poor boy." Another little laugh, sad but happy. How diga-does she manage that? She watches me staring at her all lopsided and giggles her old lady giggle again.

"Jina, right? Yer Jina." I'm not making an old lady pronounce my name. There's enough people who stumble on it. She misplaces Dino's as it is; I mean, how's she gonna diga-do at _jikaaawwnaahh_? "Come, Jina. I'll brew us some tea and we can talk about happy things at the table." Her suggestions come out as commands, albeit gentle old lady commands, so I follow her wrist flick and situate myself on one of the stools. She comes over herself, all bubbly smiles, after leaving a kettle at the fire.

"What brought y'all here again?" She pronounces again funny: _uh-gaayynn_?

Makes me wonder how many things're buzzing around in her head. Too many, maybe. She can't hardly focus on what's here with all that nonsense. She's not... sad, though. Those wizened eyes reflect a life... well-lived. Gosh, she's not a freaking thousand, is she? Man, I wonder. I'm not asking though, that's rude, and I mean, Shell. "That freak storm from a few diga-days ago, the one that shipwrecked us, heh... we got stuck and we're not sure where to go so we've been staying here with you—I mean, that is, uh, diga, cuz you said we could."

I try at a happy smile. She snorts. "Yer a funny girl. And yer boys are funny too, both of 'em." Smiling faintly... a memory etched from sometime long ago. Diga-Dang, she loses focus every five seconds...

"Ancients, huh. They be a-wakin' round here. Yer boy's got the smell of 'em all over him. Wonder why this time... eh." She shrugs off all the potential violence. "Things fall apart. Things come together. Things die. Things live."

"Oh, um..." I look away. "That's... one way to look at it, I guess."

Of course this is the moment Bliss sneaks her face back into my head. _You practical liar!_ I think I'll keep ignoring her. _You say what makes you feel good about yourself! Liars are_ fake _, you know! Yeaaaaaaah._ Oh hey, maybe the exhausted raptors under the table I totally diga-didn't accidentally kick are why she's roused again. Man, Morie's out... then again, she's always overworking herself so it was gonna happen eventually. The m-raptor's spectacularly collapsed against a warm, fiery body: Bomba, her u-raptor mate... girlfriend... I diga-don't really know what they call it, they're in their own world there. Foster snorts.

A shrill _fweeeeeeee_ splits through an otherwise peace and Shell rises for the kettle, shifting around the cloud of steam carefully. She fumbles off for cups, for leaves, for the cute tins that hold sugar. "Mmh, there's lotsa ways to lookit things. That one acknowledges mosta them, I'd think. S'easier fah some that way. Awright, fah me." A little laugh over the tea. "Girl, I've seen enough things to write a big whole book... if I remembered how to write. Ahh, s'alright. I don't need no one readin' them anyways.

She's quiet when she says this. Turning, handing me one of the mugs, she situates herself again. "Your lot sure has lotsa vivosaurs, huh. I used to have one." A barren silence answers what I restrain myself from asking. "Yeah, he no more. S'okay, he's lived purdy long too... was a good boy. His name was Spot..."

"Heh, Spot," I murmur, giggling stupidly.

She mimics me. "Sweetie Spot... was one of those furry ones, with the legs." I diga-decide against asking exactly which one that is, this poor old lady. "Anyways, Spot wasn't one of the fossil ones... revived, that thing. That's fine, we didn't mind. Didn't do much fightin' anyways... well, mostly." The further back she goes, the further cloudy her eyes get. I watch them, missing some of the stuff she rambles on over, her head tilted gently, the fog diga-densing and diga-densing in her head until for a second I think she's gone.

But slowly, surely, a light unearths. "Yes, he was a good one, Spot. He had a cute bark, but it'd be embarrassin' to copy it, as well as rude to him and his memory too, so forgive me that I don't." Shell's smile is small. "Didn't feel like havin' more than one, so it was just him and me. He was more than enough, though. Aah... my heart gets warm and sleepy when I think of him... Don't yours?"

"Buh?" Wait are we still talking about the vivosaur? "Dino?" Oh wait, he's asleep, I can't bug him. Diga-Dang... ahh... now I look stupid.

"Mmh, Dino's a good boy too. But I don't think he knows how to roll over like Spot did."

"Pfff—naww, he's inferior to Spot. If only Spot was here to teach him." It's so stupid but sweet I can't help it and smile.

Shell giggles. "Mmmh. Dino's busy with his ancients, though, the ones y'all were talking about. Say, if ya got such a load on, and yer swimmin' in the ocean, why'd ya stop?"

I open my mouth to retort something about rest and the storm was scary, but then I kinda stop and stare at a blank spot in the table, and I wonder. Man... why did we stop? Like, seriously though? We could've kept going. We've been through worse. That one time I hit my head back at Nick Nack and Bea's. That was very awful but we kept going soon after. Twirling some hair, I start braiding a corner distractedly, making a mess of more tangles.

She giggles again. Gentler. "Lookin' out for his team, uh? I don' remember all too much, I be honest, but you were very angry when we first met." Oh, gosh, why _now_ of all times diga-does she have to pull this off... "Yer... calmer. Hmm. No like the sea, uh? I think it's purdy, but it ain't for everyone." A slice of pain flashes across her face and I wince. "Spot wasn't good around it neither."

Oh... an andrarch? A bark, bad with water... furry... ohhh.

Somehow that makes everything worse. "I'm—um—I'm sorry."

"Naw, s'alright. His tide was comin', we all knew it." She pauses, introspective. "Or was it time... Ahhh, I can't remember now. Same difference." I giggle politely, clasping at the mug, remembering my diga-drink, poking at it with my lips.

My thoughts, as they seem unable not to, float back toward the half-snoring idiot flopped on the beds. He's way too freaking _much_... Biting my lip, I toy with the mug, burning my finger a little on the tea, spinning, spinning, _Dino,_ spinning, my hand curls to a fist, that stupid _Dino_ being _so_ stupidly _nice_ and _thoughtful_...

His sister's in diga-danger, actual diga-danger...

" _I was worried. I thought maybe if we kept going like this you'd get really hurt or something"_

My fist nearly snaps the stupid handle off and my head hits the table and I stay there for a moment.

" _Seriously, though. I'm happy you're feeling better now"_

That... ugh... _Dino_...

"He's not fair," I mumble. It's the first thing I think. "He's really, really, really not fair..." Stupid... making my heart ache...

I can hear her chortling, even above my diga-dumb wallowing. "Most aren't." And she leaves it like that, _mohhst areynt_ , and I sigh.

"But he's unfairly... himself. I diga-dunno." Screw him, I can't even talk about him without getting tongue-tied. He's really not fair. Ugh. I guess most people aren't, or _whatever_ , but... ugh, screw him, just _really_ screw him. My other fingers smush into a fist that I pound against the table and I breathe, forehead aching from where I hit it, certainly bruised, maybe bleeding a little bit. I diga-don't move after that though.

Nnnh... If I start crying I'm blaming it on my head, which really throbs now... I-It's not my fault my best friend's an infuriating piece of unfocused, unorganized, discombobulated _turd_. I swallow back tears, stupid tears, stupid Dino diga-doesn't diga-deserve these stupid tears, _idiot,_ no he diga-doesn't at all, but I'm just this big unruly mess so there's not much I can diga-do about it. Ugh. That makes me an idiot too, now diga-doesn't it.

Someone giggles in the back of my head. I snap at them but they probably can tell my heart's not in it, and if they can't then, well, _Foster_ certainly can, and he's a turd too.

He just gets so stupidly diga-distracted by these kindsa things... oh my gosh, he thinks he's so _strong_...

Releasing a breath, I turn my head, squishing one cheek into the table. I'd see if my hair wasn't plastered to my stupid teary face. And that's it, isn't it. He must really care about me, that stupid turd. And... ugh... and I must _really_ care about him if I'm gonna act like a turd about it myself. Huh. It almost feels good admitting it, but then my body's all cold and kinda diga-damp in select places.

"He thinks he's strong, diga-doesn't he," I mutter into the wood grain.

Shell giggles. She must've known since the beginning. Gaaah. "Yes he does. I've known boys like him. And girls like you, and boys like you and girls like him too. Not many like Fapty, though, I think he's special." I roll my eyes at that, can't stop a pretty awkward snort from spouting out of my head. "But he likes to feel worthy, now don't he. He an orphan?"

My cheeks redden. "I-I am. He thought he was, cuz he's a complete idiot, but he's not. Grew up as one, though." He's... well. He was an idiot. An idiot in a lot of pain, I'll give him that, but still an idiot. "We met his diga-dad not so long ago, digadig. Lotsa turd happened, now we're looking for his sister." I snort again. My cheeks get hotter. I try to ignore that last part—actually, no, both of them. "He... forgot about it all. It's pretty messed up. And a long story.

"But... yeaaaah, he went through stuff and now he feels bad about it or something. Trying to make himself some sorta _hero_ , that weirdo. Diga, I can't believe him."

"But you love him, donchu?"

"Sh-Shut up!" I hate you. Go away.

Soft old lady laughing meets my stupid, futile wish. "He does too. That's why he does it." She's got this stupid smile on her face when I look up, but then I get self-conscious with my bruised forehead and runny nose and all these tear tracks, so I flip a wad of hair over my face and she laughs some more. "Yer a funny bunch. All of y'all must be _weirdos_ , then, huh."

My face smushes and I mutter, "I'm just gonna stop listening to you now," because I diga-don't have any good comebacks at this point.

"Hmmhmmhmmmm... that just means you are." My insides are slowly morphing into knives. I'm going to diga _-die_ right now. "Fapty was talkin' bout it too, some point. Can't remember when. Talkin' bout weaknesses and idiots who are also weirdos." This is _awful_ , I should _stop_ listening but it seems my _brain_ hasn't caught on. "And protection." Oh no. That word. That always ends up in the wrong places. "Protection's a funny thing, innit? Funny like all of y'all. You make quite the strong triangle."

"I said I'm not listening," I mumble, "so y-you can stop your gibberish!"

To her credit, she just keeps laughing. Man, how long has it been since she's seen another person? We have no way of knowing, and her memory's so skewed she might as well think that yesterday was five years ago, for all we know. That almost sounds lonely... but maybe it helps her cope, helps her think that old, diga-dearly diga-departed friends haven't really left. And I guess they _haven't_ really, when I stop and think about it. They're still there where it matters.

Spot... diga-dang it, now I feel guilty. I diga-dive under the table and bump my head on it wrapping Morie and Bomba into a hug. I think I need a hug right now. The latter immediately starts freaking out but as the first awakens she gets her to shut up and I feel a little better after squeezing them as hard as I can all close to me.

 _She's goin' crazy_ , confirms Bliss.

Bomba mutters something I miss. Morie yells at her for it. Bomba reluctantly apologizes, but then I think she says it again.

 _No, I don't think she's any crazier than she already was._

I groan. _Gee, thanks, Foster._ Good _to know you're on my side._ He chortles, there, as I sniffle awkwardly, and then Bliss snorts too in that unintentional way that she probably got from me, and then out of nowhere Nodopi takes in the lot of us and tells us to get over ourselves. Well. We diga-don't, not really. At least _I_ diga-don't, it was never something I was very good at.

Bliss gives me this look in my head. Yeah, I probably lie a lot too. Whatever.

When I feel better, I crawl out from under table legs with my vivosaurs tight in my arms, and I diga-don't let go until they go back into their little medals, where I put them in a pocket with the rest. And because Dino's still sapped and Raptin's still slathered in that green aloe stuff, I sit again, work on trying to comb through my hair for a little while, then wipe at my muddled cheeks and try to look as presentable as we're getting, which isn't much but it's a long ways from where I was. Bliss bursts out laughing and I continue to ignore her because there's a conversation I diga-don't wanna have in that laugh of hers.

And we just talk, like no big diga-deal, and I diga-drink my not-as-cold-as-I-thought-it'd-be tea, and mostly it's about Spot the I-think-andrarch like he was with us yesterday, and for all she knows maybe he was, but that's alright, it's a warm splotch in my chest now. Spot. I like Spot, and heck, I never even met him, but if he made an old lady this excited even today, then he must've been a stellar friend.

It makes me sad, wondering just how long he hasn't been around, so I diga-don't focus on that. _She_ obviously diga-doesn't, though I diga-don't think I wanna get as unfocused and bleary as she diga-does. Like how... Dino diga-did, back before he remembered his diga-dad, back when the memories hurt too much.

That always made me wonder if there was something wrong with me, since I'd lost people too but I diga-didn't literally _forget_ about it, it was so bad. But whatever, I guess, it's all in the past or whatever.

Morie mutters something consoling but it diga-doesn't really work so I pretend I diga-didn't hear it. She just sighs a little mom sigh. Never took me seriously anyways.

It's Raptin who comes back first. Most of the goo's diga-dried and I must admit that the red aches across his body have seriously toned diga-down if not completely diga-disappeared in a few spots. He sits reluctantly and releases a sharp breath when it hurts either more or less than he expected, I can't tell which. Probably more. Oh, Rapty. Sucking in another breath, he murmurs, "What have you ladies been talking about?"

"Your bad habits," I assure him, "at least, all the ones I can remember." His face reddens and I smile a little more. "Especially that one time when you, like, wouldn't shut up about—"

"We have no need t-to hear about those!" He has to raise his voice to shut me out and his face grows further flustered afterward. I almost feel bad. _Almost._ "Shell, she was not tormenting you, wa-was she? I am afraid she has done this a great number of times to about anyone who comes near her!"

I force the most innocent smile I can onto my face and Shell giggles all over again. "Ah, she's been nice to me, complimenting my Spot and sitting and chatting about her friends." I'm a little diga-disappointed, but it's not like I can kick _Shell_ under the table for giving me away.

"Your... spot?" Oh _right._ He diga-doesn't know.

"Yeah!" I crow, "the one under her chin!" He swipes at me, eyes glazed in some haze he's probably felt every time I open my mouth, and Shell quickly reassures him that wasn't what she meant but the probably-andrarch. Raptin might not know what an andrarch is but he diga-does get that it's not the one under her chin so he's... sated? Close enough.

Letting out a long exhale through his nose, Raptin slightly inclines his head and mutters, "Please excuse her misbehavior. I am afraid she is quite the _fool_." Ouch, Rapty, that stung.

"Oh, s'alright." Shell shakes her head, sending her curls into bounces about her. "We're all fools here, mister real guardian."

Raptin's features steadily incline too. Oop. He's not happy.

Straightening, he tries again. "A-Anyway, we should be leaving soon. Thank you very much for your hospitality and... um, aaah-low, but we need to continue our search for the sister Dino is missing. She is... very important to, um, _many_ people." Nervously trying to take the implication off of himself, that diga-dork.

His gaze points sharply at me and I smile weakly. I think he noticeably sags in some form of relief when I diga-don't go spoiling about the fact that she's some legendary princess and she's possessed by an ancient and other crazy things that... well, we're not sure what would happen but it wouldn't be pretty.

"She a princess er somethin?"

"N-NO, SHE IS NOT." Raptin nervously slams his hands against the table. Well. So much for being subtle.

It's the yell that finally wakes him. When I hear him stirring I jump up from the table and launch against my best friend and then he can't get up and he asks me, half groggy, to please move. When I scoot aside he takes my hand and one of us or maybe both nearly trip after standing, but he manages to straighten and open his eyes a little more. "Maaaaaaan... I'm exhausted."

I pout. "Thomas and Iggy are jerks." He laughs softly at that.

"Not their fault they're jerks. They're ancients. They keep warning me that we're running head-on toward some sorta danger, but I mean, that's probably Dina, so it's fiiine." A yawn diga-drifts in the air. "Besides. If it's not her, then, well, she _is_ in danger even so... so we gotta keep going, y—uh." Glancing back at me, he bites at his lip.

"Dino!" I gently push him. "Dino, diga-don't stay because of me! Diga-Dang it, I'm coming too either way and you know it! We're gonna go _save_ her and everything! I-I'm sorry for being a jerk too but I'm coming, I'm coming!" I try to ignore the voice cracks.

He diga-doesn't. Smiling gently, he leans diga-down to face me better. "Yeah, huh. I just... I dunno... I said I'd protect you, and... man, you hate the water, and..." He diga-draws off, those gray eyes so... diga-distant.

I push him again. "I-I'm still coming! Ignore that! Ignore... that stuff. That's just me being stupid, diga... being, um, real stupid! We gotta save diga-Dina, holy turd! C'monnnn!" By the time I've started pulling at him, he's returned, and he laughs quietly.

"Alright, alright." Another yawn permeates and—and diga-dang it—I can't help it and cover my mouth as I yawn too, cheeks flushing. "Heheh. We better get a move on. The missing sissy awaits."

Makes me smile, that...

He diga-doesn't _apologize_ for leaving us stranded here, or when we wrecked here after _the storm_ , either. But I diga-don't ask him too. I—I diga-don't want him too, I guess.

We gather Raptin and thank Shell and he pulls out diga-Droplet who lands with a mighty _booosh_ in the waters on the other side of the island. So on we go, probably-westward, as close as we can probably get to find the missing sissy.

I keep thinking about the old lady who took us in there as we go. The curly white hair, the kind smile, the old old eyes, at _least_ five hundred... and Spot too. I ask Dino if Spot's watching over us, but turd, he diga-didn't hear that story, now diga-did he, so I have to tell him in a pretty rushed manner, but I think he gets it. Diga-Doesn't think he's _with_ us though, that little turd.

Whatever. At least _he_ is.

 **This was a pretty different chapter, yeah? XD We have Jkkie! Finally! Haha, it's weird, I haven't written in her voice since TSFF which was over half a year ago, nearing a whole year since... But I think it went well? Maybe? Aah...**


	22. Da: Vase

**So, if anyone needs to know why I'm posting so quickly, heheh, it's because I have an extra day of school off so, y'know, I'm using it to write more xD We'll see how it goes! The last time we saw Dina she was in a much different position so we'll see how I do writing this, haha... ahhh...**

 **Torn: -man fuck everything-**

 **Trikko: -you're not even there, what are you talking about?-**

 **Torn: -EVERYTHING, YOU SHIT-**

 **Trikko: grunts -Of course, how could I be so stupid-**

 **Torn: -I MEAN! I! UGHHh! FUCK YOU! I MEAN THE FACT THAT WE'RE SO FUCKIN POWERLESS NOW!-**

 **Trikko: -You do realize we're only slightly more powerless than before, right? And that's debatable, looking at our odds with Zoazoa.-**

 **Torn: loud painful screaming**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 22: Vase

 _Dina_

My nerves get the best of me. With the silence still and condescending against me, cold and confusing, I close my eyes and fold over, and I press my head against the ashes below me, and I breathe, and I breathe, weakly breathe, hiccups splintering my flow and causing my further-weakened whispers of voice to start again, and again, until I cannot go on any longer and I need to stop.

Gently I fold my hands in front of me. I clasp them together. Squeeze, tightly. My body goes frigid against the touch of the darkness, clinging like a blanket to my bent-over figure, and I am quiet, quiet like a simple hill in a vast plain, quiet like I am not really there now. But I am, I have to remember, I am very... very well here. Do not... succumb. O-Or at least try not to. B-But what do I do now? I-I am sorry, this confusion, but what am I supposed to do? There is... no one to... to _tell_ me.

Todd led me by the hand out of the Hurican household. And before that, his parents served as some... form of example. And I listened. Y-Yes, I listened to them. I knew my place then. And even with Torn, his steaming, booming voice aching through my hollow soul, as loud as he was, as frivolous as he became until his disappearance, yes, I must admit he did not help outside of vainly comfort me... he at least tried to tell me what came next. And that is it: what... comes next? Do I... stay? Do I... move? There is—no—there is nothing waiting on me anymore. I will... stay here. Now.

For how long? H-How long until there is someone else in front of me? Nnnnh... The emptiness is so... full. So full of empty and empty alone. I shake thinking about it. I tremble in the wake of my single sense of self. A low, hollow thrumming strums my empty world. And it is just black now. Merely... black. I do open my eyes, and I think I am standing, my tail swishing behind me, my hands splayed in front of me, steps forward, forward... forward...

There are little imprints, sometimes. In few places. When I look, tilted to the left, carefully, for a moment, a fleeting moment, I catch hint of where the horizon stops and land starts, until it fizzles out and I am left wondering if I envisioned this all on my own. My _own_. Wh-What a scary thought. I... suppose I have not spent much time alone before. And even if I had prior to the occurrence of Torn and Trikko and everyone else, I do not remember it. Ah... my head hurts a little, a tiny angry throb that will soon extrapolate if I am not careful...

What made it so... cold in here? My sight is utterly ruined, as it has been since the beginning if but for my dimetro, so I would think the others are fair to utilize, but I... but I am unsure if I can, if there is even anything to search for. When I raise my head and force myself another step forward the sudden chill howls in my ears and drizzles my skin, an abundance of white pinpricks. My headache explodes and I swerve sidelong.

I think I crash. But when I can focus again I... stand. And I think I am further than I was earlier, maybe, because the wind hits me from the full back instead of an angle, propelling me forward, more slamming than guiding me, forcing me along. But my feet toil and spin as I move and I note the first, second... third time an ankle twists and I turn yet again that the force turns with me, and when I fall to the earth and give into my confusion, balled fists, closed eyes, it seamlessly disperses.

Somehow that makes it hurt so much more. My cold palms I push into my forehead, waves of agony stretched from it and then as I try to move a nauseous sensation spirals down to the pit of my stomach and I stop. And I stop. And I breathe a little more, head tilted to the ground, fingers clawing an empty earth, searching for something to hold onto, nothing to meet me but silt. When I squint my bleak surroundings edge and blur and I take in another breath, tucking it in me weakly, focus, focus, but the slamming ache has no mercy to give and... and—no, no, stop... aaaah... as much as I try I only... seem to slip away.

Waves. No, not just waves, crashing and turning but motion that pools me and I find myself unable to swim, nothing to hold, nothing to feel but I slam back and do not find a surface to land on but bobbing, bobbing waters. I gasp and thrash and kick and I fall again, water against water, slick and slimy and grimy and wet, freezing and fervent and... my head goes under.

Drown...ing.

I lose focus again, not so different from the last time, my eyes wide and desperate and gaping like my mouth as water does not come in, and I am collapsed on ashes that do not cling to sopping scales but stay, mostly. Where I rest. A clammy hand I draw through my bangs, collecting bits of inky black something—I think the ash—when one finger rubs upon something that _is_ wet. Gently I rub my thumb along the weighty line of puncture... up, up, side, up—oh. I bite my lip. That tells me... where my headache sources.

O-Only to be expected. Shaking, I pull my hand away and nervously rub at the blood that only sticks to my other fingers then, too, this icky thick red mess of fingerprints up and down my cheek and chest and hands, shaking hands, shaking body, shaking head, and the pain hits like fire and I duck again, tucking into myself. And I stay there, in a world deep inside of me where there is no water and there is no cold and there is no wind trying to stick fingers inside of me that will rip me apart from the inside out.

No. Nothing, really. Naught but memories. Empty memories. Empty girl. I try to focus but my head hurts too much to and so much as I ease it against the earth and rest there, staring at a lightless ceiling that could be either the length of a fingernail or the length of five hundred thousand above me... Then it hurts more and I try to stop thinking again.

Time is relative. I am... beginning to realize this whole other world full of nothing but my rather large emotions. Where there is no space, and there is endless space, and time is a figment of imagination that may move forward, may lag behind, may not be there at all. A moment is a minute is millenia.

It is an almost scary realization to swallow, almost too big to. Somehow... comforting, though, too. Until I realize what if I eventually leave this shell only to learn that everyone I ever cared about passed a long time ago?

N-No. I will c-certainly not think about that. B-Bad idea. Very... bad. I do not even know his _name_ , I-I never would if that were to occur, a-and Torn said I need to learn it for myself and... and I cannot do that if they are all gone. If I think about it too long I begin to see through my false hope but I like false hope more than no hope at all, so I try to keep it intact, as priceless and worthless as it is. A little trinket to hold... no.

Still empty.

Wincing, I lay back down and stare at a ceiling, at a sky that is not there. My head has begun to lull, like sleep, and I gratefully allow it to lag, holding my breath between every throb. Fainter, fainter. Th-There: that is a good thing. But it leaves me without anything else. I-I fear the cold that pierced my skin earlier, so I stay low, stay down, where it did not come from, and if I stay level then maybe it will not return, however it arrived in the first place maybe will not be triggered here. B-But maybe that is futile too, for all I...

Nnnf. I pout at the world above me. Trikko... did not think that way. Despite all odds he continued to conjure laughter up and out of my throat. And... he did not think in an unpredictable manner: if it happened before it may happen again, but the only way it will happen is if it has reason to. And if I block off all reasons to, then it cannot happen. I was standing when it did and continually fell... and I did not stay down and thus it stayed as well. Maybe.

This is okay. This is not... bad. But it is not much of anything else either. A slight chill has brushed my figure, but nothing outside of a spell, nothing strong enough to scare me. N-Not... really. O-Only a little bit. L-Little tiny, tiny bit. Oh, this is not helping either...

A crawling sensation creeps up my spine, something cold and icy, and as my fear settles I jolt and a monsoon of sleet cascades upon me.

I cannot keep track: oh, how I try to, but I cannot keep track of every single lob that marks me, that drills against my scales and leaves nothing but a slimy kiss of a memory, hot and hard and throbbing. While I sit up I do not stand and I—I try not to move, try not to focus too hard on it, and soon after the hail melts and the welts disappear and I sit there, staring weakly at an unseen horizon.

It stopped faster that time. And... And maybe it was not real. Yes—Yes, _that_. Not real, or, um, they were like the memories Zoazoa shot at me, the heavy and overbearing memories of a pockmarked past—this is not... real.

As reassuring as that is... then I wonder... curling up... what makes anything real in here? And before I can help myself the thought springs out of my lips and I whisper, faintly: "Torn..?" knowing fully well that no, no, he is not here... but _was_ he? What if... he never was? M-Maybe he is out there somewhere but was he real then and—and— _and_ was he _ever_ real? All I have are memories to provide me... and f-for all I know Zoazoa force-fed them into my skull and these are... _fake_. Fake memories. Fake world. Fake Dina.

Fake boy. With the little smile, the golden gaze, the gentle hands.

But _Trikko_ told me—

Is Trikko real? I hurriedly cup my hands over my face before the scream rushes out next. Hot in my throat, a thick knot, I try not to think about it, try so very hard not to because this is hard, this is very hard not to, but to think about it shatters everything I am trying so hard to believe in and if I lose that... then what is the point? O-Of hope, false or otherwise? Of... me? Of anything? What is real in here? What is real out there?

When I press my head into my knees and I wrap my arms around my legs, my whole body cold and shaking and miserable... I just start to cry. The need overcomes me and the knot in my throat is so tight... and my eyes already misty... I cry. Words escape me. Thoughts desert me. Torn was never there for me and but a figment in my lonely, lonely head, for but a lonely life having yet lived. My sobs cascade out from my lips, from my palm, and I ignore the sickly pain in my forehead and then I cry for that too, for a confusion far too head-achingly impossible for me to understand. Too hard... for me.

Rain. The soft shower of it, the lukewarm feel of it, the soft and earthy smell of it... My hair sticks to my face in hopeless tangles, autumn burrs, though I cannot even see their color right now, I just feel it, pounding rain like wings in the air, forcing down upon me... yet so freeing, too. Rain is real. Or it was... once. I think I remember rain. A tiny window wedged in a dark, drafty, reluctant wall. A slick outdoors. The color of—oh. No... it was snow.

That... That is it. I close my eyes, hiding my head in my palms, in my legs, and I hiccup and sob and whisper "That is it" because _that is it—_ snow _._ I remember snow, I remember snow and I remember the boy who haunts my memories most closely, his gentle self beside me, around me... with me. I remember snow because he was there too, and maybe Torn as well, little white flakes, the color of milk. Snow. Snow is real. Snow must be real or this is all hopeless and I may as well give up now, because I do not want to think about another false reality.

Unless it is all real. But I—I do not want to think so... loosely. J-Just in case. Just to be safe.

Snow. I lift my head and remove small hands and gently release my tongue and feel the touch of it resting there.

I am almost sad to feel that illusion go too, but maybe I will see real snow again someday. But still—snow. Snow is something, snow is not nothing, no, it cannot be nothing at all... and if it is, then I will pretend o-otherwise. Y-Yes.

Maybe if snow is real... then he is real too. Oh... but what if I return only to learn that he was only a random human being and not someone I... I...

No. I will not think that way. M-Maybe I can force him to—no. _No_. Dina, _no._ Giggling weakly, I cover my face again. That is a very bad idea only bearing disastrous consequences. I cannot _force_ someone to love me—t-truly, I cannot force _anyone_ to do _anything_. I think they always forced me.

Though I did not mind. And, thinking of it now, I do not think I do now either. Another weak smile, my laugh futile and... draining to hear. Oof.

But even so, when I lift myself and stand, on no less than both feet... there is no pain that greets me. And... And I almost melt to the earth again, the relief that overcomes me... and it is with a much lighter conscience that I move on. My headache, a memory by this point. Though of course it could return just as easily, for all I know. Aah... This makes me feel both chained and free... and it is such a... hard feeling to bear.

Maybe he is not real... but I need to focus my mind on something... and so that option becomes Torn. Because I want to believe in Torn... because I want to believe he is real. The boisterous, zesty, wrathful dimetro with more than enough to say for the both of us—and Trikko too—and an opinion that must always be stated first. Glitzy blue scales, big pink eyes that jam into the head of whoever dares stare at him... the forked tongue flickering in his amusement, or maybe resent, I am unsure which he gloats at times.

Oh, Torn. The name I believe I remembered first... the blue light. His helpful hoping and his dissuasion—not to give me the name of the boy who so haunts and yet so endears me. His way of thinking, the way that usually gets us all into trouble, because he refuses to listen to anyone else if they do not agree with him. Somehow my breaths grow heavy, my mind swimming in a small haze of grief, as I think of him, as I think of the unfortunate events he pulled the both of us into. And somehow I miss that. I miss him.

Eventually in my wandering I exhaust the topic of Torn and instead lead onto him. Such a... mystery, and I decide I do not like the mystery, that I like knowing, that not knowing scares me and this instability... hurts. But I like... him. And, and besides, other than a swath of memories, real or no—ah, what a thought I dislike trifling myself in—all I am missing, really, is his name. That... bothers me. I want more than... an image, and feelings that pound my chest so strongly. I need... I need what Trikko needs: a reason... please... I see eyes that shine brighter than any precious medal, emotions intangible yet felt so strongly... and I see nothing too.

I think we were close, very close, before my fated departure. I think you were nice to me... or at least at one point I think you were. I think I... I... love you. So please... do not leave me alone, here, with but my thoughts to keep me company. You must know: you must know me, if we mean so much to each other. You must know I cannot live on the voices in my head alone, on half-eaten memories. Because I know that _I_ know something about you. Something very important about you.

You were distant to a great many people. And for some time, I was one of them. But not forever—and that is it—the _not forever_ I feel tugging in my heart—that is what leads me on now. Living off of faint hopes and dreams, the entrails of things that once were. Do you hear me? Do you... see me? Please... if you feel me in any single way... please...

An awful laugh cracks out from inside of me, and I cover my face, and I duck my head.

I do not know what to ask of him, this fruitless conversation I have gone and done up in my head. I make myself a beautifully hypothetical situation and I do not even know how to end it. What do I say? What do I say now? The laugh keeps scraping, the feeling of wounds down my throat, but I cannot stop now.

I miss you. I miss you.

And then it comes. _Snick—_ a faint sound scraping the edge of my skull—and the _whoosh_ of startled air—and the _thuk_ of a target being found. Suddenly nervous, I toss my hands aside and look down and I think that is an arrow, an arrow delicately perched in the violet of my chest? Oh... oh, um... it faintly glows, and I press into the sharp part and then I feel blood welling up where I bit my cheek and wipe at wet eyes. My other hand, the one without a tear etched down the middle, reaches for the stick at the end of the arrow; the moment I touch it unbearable feeling sears me and before I can think I fall to my legs, curled up around my new wound.

My heart... hurts. My heart hurts. Oh, and I thought my _head_ was in pain earlier... My vision dives in and out... in... and out... and I count the splotches of consciousness until I lose count of that and need to lean over and press my forehead into the soil as... fire inches up my back. I feel it, burning, eating my flesh in tender morsels, and I cover my face again, deep breaths, deep breaths, please make it stop, please make it all go away...

Torn. I grab it as it comes, and I squeeze every last piece of being out of it and I cry into the earth, "You did not tell me his name!" and it is much louder than I thought it was going to be, and I lurch back at the sound and the fire envelops me. And I wish, I wish I knew his name, I wish I had the soothing notion, the "complete" feeling of knowing, at least, that with a faint sense of personality and a mostly-complete image in my head and a voice and a smell and the warmth of his body I wish I wish I _wish_ I had his name.

Maybe then... it would not feel so broken...

It is as I stay there, smoldering, I come to terms with this notion, and soon after I am deserted yet again. And the light from the arrow in the wound of my chest is out, and then there is nothing. It stops hurting, my heart, so I raise my head again.

Swallow. I feel the whimper rising in my throat but I let it out anyways, head shifting down. "I am sorry." Wipe my nose, my streaming... nose. "The fire... The fire is..." Gone. "And the... the water, all the water is..." Gone. "Does it... Do I..."

What did Trikko tell you... Trikko told you to experiment, to collect data, because not to collect data means no idea. H-Heh—means _Torn_. And I giggle at that, weakly and sickly as I do. But I remember, heat flushing from my shaky body, I remember that I do have no idea. So... so... "Why?" And I pull my mouth shut after that, because asking why does not help any more than having no idea does. So I stop here, and I stand again.

And then I sit. And I stay like that. Because what is the point? What is the point of... of any of this? Whimpering, I slap a hand over my lips and what is the point of anything? I close my eyes and I swallow my frustration but as I pull myself up again the sense of loss returns, so it is with a faint, painful cry that I kick the dust beneath me, falling down again.

A voi—

" _Don't go anywhere now, you fucking hear me? Don't get any ideas once we leave."_

His face, his scales, the big pink eyes shred across my vision. The face is so close his heat strikes me like a blow, and the scales of brilliant blue take a hue of flame, faint circles of purple spotting and coloring an otherwise peaceful expression. The fire lights a wick to the candles in his pupils and he screams.

" _DON'T FORGET, DON'T YOU FUCKING, FUCKING EVER FUCKING FORGET, DINA!"_

Wheezing gasps spasm out of me as the vision fades. Blearily I take in the sight of the silt all around me with the flash of his disappearance and I lift fistfuls of it, and I toss it through the air, as far as I can, which is not very far but it is further than before. This is accompanied by a punch of sound, and I nearly fall yet again, the power it thrusts through me.

" _DAMMIT, I'M SCARED, DINA! I'M REALLY FUCKING SCARED!"_

His voice breezes past me, stronger than the wind, than the howling in the breeze, and I cough softly as I step back with it. Then... ummm... I pulse what little energy remains into my throbbing fingers, and I sit in the silt, and I think of something, the first thing that comes back to me, and I toss another handful whistling through the air, as the entire world lights up with a crack of thunder around me.

" _Hey Diiiiiiinaaaaaa!"_

A boy. But not—not _my_ boy, but another boy, a boy sporting dark curls and matching dark eyes and the warmest, biggest, most enveloping smile I think I have ever laid eyes on. He bursts through the silt and splashes through my head and his arms take me in, his voice gentle but just as loud by my ear. _"Diiinaaaa, I can't show you anything if you just stand there all stupid! You gotta come this way, okay?"_ The voice softens with the smile as he scoots back, reaching out a tan hand toward me. _"Right here. I'm right here."_

I nearly cry. A-Again. But I cannot help it... This is Todd. But—no—not completely Todd. In trousers and a shirt beneath the straps, a loud orange one, a cheeky grin... and younger than before—though my younger self remembers his height still dominating mine—this is Past Todd, but still Todd nevertheless. Happily I clasp the hand outstretched, my heart pounding in my head when I feel the skin beneath it. His body, while dipped in a light of forest green, still connects to me. Maybe because... of the memory, and the hand I held in it.

My foster brother leads me forward, and the world splits open, beckoning around us. A faint green hue has enveloped the trees and a brown-like smudge has smothered the soil beneath us, and as the world climbs I know that like the castle I had entered with Zoazoa this is not real, not truly real... but it almost is. Todd is much faster than I am, even when I am older than this Past Todd by some years, and I hurry to stay in pace with him. When I trip his grip tightens; when he does the same I try to mimic the favor though there are times when I ultimately fall with him.

He is laughing the entire time. Any spare breaths of mine go immediately to my lungs but he laughs and laughs and laughs so warmly, head tossed back, eyes bright and shining like stars from another world. Like good things and warm thoughts and a happy, happy world very different from the one we grew up in...

The longer I set into the memory, if this even if one, or perhaps I am imagining a past where we ran somewhere far away together, but the longer it goes the further enveloped I feel until his words come like Torn or Trikko had sounded when they were here with me. "Maaaaan, Diiiinaaa, stop kickin' my feeeeet! I know you're a weak wimp, but seeerrioouusssllyyyyy!"

"I-I am sorry!" I cry as I trip over his heel for the umpteenth time.

"NO! C'mon! Dina!" The force is immediate as he pulls me back up again. "You're supposed to yell at me now because I'm the one who's practically dragging you to come with me! Aaaah, what, did you never have siblings before?" He remembers, then, Past Todd. "Oh right, we have no way to figure that out. Puhh! Whatever!" And then he stops. Suddenly. And he hugs me again, his trousers rubbing against my scales in a friendly sort of way. "Oh right. Heheh. I'm that sibling now, huh." He sounds... pleased.

While we stand there, quiet but for the soft music of the forest around us, I skew my lip slightly, and I whisper, "Todd, wh-where are we going..? Wh-What is it you want to show me?"

He giggles. "I can't tell you that! We gotta get there first! You can't cheeeeat, Diiiinaaaaaaa!" His smile lingers as he releases me but for the hand he has been squeezing. Not another word and he runs along again, and I return to my attempt to stay in pace with a pace purposely cruder and faster than mine, but I keep trying albeit the ploys my foster brother uses.

Up the cliff we climb, circling it upon a well-worn track that must have been traveled by lots and lots of different feet before, until the track levels out upon a peat-splashed earth upon a thick, steady plateau. Somewhere in my mind, I feel as if... I recognize this highland... if but faintly. There, further up... on the edge... what was it? Did a vivosaur... threaten us? Did one of us nearly fall off? Did someone else show up—or was I with someone else in the first place when this niggling memory occurred? Oh... it fights in my mind but there is nothing to fight with, and so it merely stays there, my conscious worry, but it does not leave either.

Todd catches my stare. "Whatcha lookin' at?"

I flush. "N-Nothing." Point at the cliff edge.

He looks at it too. Then he slaps my face and he cries, "WE ARE NOT JUMPING, YOU—YOU STUPID!" And he laughs too but the feeling in his eyes is thick and incisive, cutting my eyes in his. "Don't scare me like that." Another giggle, a nervous bout. "My gosh. Dina."

"N-Nng..." I-I did not say I wanted to... I... _oh_... "Because if we jumped... um..?"

"Because if we jumped we'd be dead, _duh_." Looking away, he sighs. Shake of the head. His curls bounce with him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to show you that. Let's try this again!" Another harder shake. "Alright! What I wanted to show you is... is...

He draws out the word and he hops forward, turning back toward me and extending his hands, beating them like wings. "Freedom!"

I sputter. "F-Freedom?"

"Yeaaaah! My parents'll never figure out if you're hidden somewhere up here! Besides, a ton of helicopters pass this way so I'm sure a cargo somethin'll like want you to help them or whatever and there you go, no more Huricans, no more bad!"

I smile weakly, and then I turn my head myself, cupping my face with my hands, because I cannot look into those sweet dark eyes anymore. Because Todd never had a moment to smuggle me out of the Huricans because I never tried to leave because I did not mind, really, because I did not think much of myself then. He did. But we never... did escape. Not really. His parents grew tired of my unchanging self and shipped me off with him to the Caliosteo Islands, and then that was it with them.

"H-Heh..." Wincing, I wipe at a cheek. "Um... th-thank you very much," I tell Past Todd, my voice muffled by my palms. It is only to be expected... that one of these memories would be fake. But... But then it reveals to me what I think, no, what I feel must be... must be real. And what must be real must be the past that lumps in my throat and reminds me of how I came to be here, that reminds me Todd is not omnipresent and all-giving and I am not so... strong as to try and escape myself, no.

That is okay. I sink to the earth, my body shaking. That is okay.

When I open my eyes again, Todd has dissolved but this stage has yet to, so curiously I follow to the edge of the cliff and I sit there, swinging my legs over the end of a very, very far fall. A conjured wind pulls at my feet. So far as it blusters, I do not go with it, and I kick at the wind freely. My feet scrape against the cliff edge the harder I swing, so I stop, a little lamely. It... stings.

I think I miss the presence of someone else, real or past or fake or no. Just the being of someone else... around me. B-Besides, I always listened well to what... others had to say, and not to myself. It is like... what I felt earlier, with the fire and the hail and the rain, like what I told the boy... This is hard. My body tingles and aches from the sapping of so much energy from myself, but I still want to try, I still want to keep pushing into this world a feeling... to s-see what else might happen. The cliff stays, perhaps because I, um, willed it as so. But I was not in control of myself when the natural disasters struck me... so if I... s-stay calm... stay calm...

My arm... itches. My fingers run over the side of it and I detect the cause, lifting finger pads that now stick with small bouts of the ashes. Are they... ashes? Like a burnt piece of something else... they still hold something inside of them, surely, and each of these somethings bestow a light in this place, one I am thankful of. And I know, in my heart, I know something happened here, on this cliff, if only I remembered what. But what if... I recreate something that did not happen, like with Todd?

Then what do I... what do I...

Nervously I stare at the bead of black on my otherwise snowy white finger. This tiny bead contains a great level of power within it... if only I knew how to manipulate it correctly. But all I feel is the aching in my chest, and I think of the arrow, that arrow I conjured myself in my pain, and I lower my head slowly, and I whisper, "I wish I knew your name," softly, to the bead, and with a puff of my breath it goes sailing away, away, away, until I lose sight of it, a speck of black reentering the sea.

So weak already... I think I lose consciousness for some amount of time. When I regain bearings I lift my head from the rocks behind me, and I brush back the gravel that caked there with little dents of blood. Not... as much as before, though, and it is easy to scrub out with merely my hands. As I turn myself from the end of the cliff, my eyes catch on a stray patch of light and I slip from my perch on the cliff.

If not for his hands I would have fallen. Down... down... down. If not for his strength I would have stayed there, if naught else, cursed to hang until I could conjure myself out, and I am unsure if I would have the strength to do much anything else. When he lifts me I crawl out upon the cliff side and stand beside him, and the gloved hands are reluctant to draw away from me.

It is stupid but I am nervous to look into his face. I think I know who I will see and somehow, oh, somehow that makes me so nervous. I try to swallow away the lump in my throat that seemingly shows up at every last turn. So I face the ground when I find the courage to tell him, "I-I am... sorry. I do not remember... your name. But, um... hello."

The voice is soft, fluttering against my scales. He stands close to me, but not so close as to skewer the immediate space around me. "Think nothing of it." My head ducks a little more as he says it, my lips nervously pressed together.

This boy... ah, who is he? Who is he... really? He speaks one sentence and my heart hammers inside of me, as if threatening to break me... in just one sentence. Wh-What happens when he speaks two? Three? C-Can I stand it? Oh... why am I so nervous..? O-Of course it is possible to conjure him, so much as anything else in this wayward nexus, but... but it... but he...

Steeling myself, situating my feet, I turn and look him in the eyes, those gilded, golden eyes. I stumble back and look away but a moment after, my face hot. It burns in me: pale, warm skin and gentle features, and while I have seen them sharp and distant there is a welcoming sense of kindness inside of them this time. The white hair, silvery in places, shrouds him but softly... and those piercing eyes... oh, oh no... oh _no_... _no_ , do not tell me...

"A-A-Are you an angel?" I whimper, "ohhh, p-p-pleaaase do not be an angel..." Either I am dead... or he was never real in the first place... o-or maybe I am losing my mind... aaaah... I-I do not want to lose my mind... oh, but maybe it is too late...

There in my isolation I feel the soft touch of a hand cup my chin, gently tilt my face upward. The eyes are much... softer, as he whispers, "Dina..?" I wince and wrench my head downwards and his hand falls with it, though without leaving my cheek, gently stroking it, stroking _me._

"Um... p-please be yourself." It sounds foreign, limping out from inside of me, my words, but I try to strengthen them, I try to help him understand them. "Please do not... be anyone... but yourself. P-Please." Maybe that is what I wanted to ask him. Yes... m-maybe. "E-Even if you are an angel, and I have l-lost my mind... please be yourself."

A little grin touches his lips. "Insane? Not you, surely?" And the smile tears at my heart and I have to stop and look away again.

"M-Maybe." I do not know... I wish I could ask him if he was real... this is so... _weird._ It feels so weird.

With a breath, I try again. "If... If I a-ask you a question, will you answer me? I am not... very sure how, um... how this works. But um... please answer me with what you think is... the truth. I am... already so lost in here..." I blush. "If!—If that is okay wi-with you!"

The eyes refocus upon me. "Of course. What is it? I may not... be as helpful as you would like, but I may try."

"O-Okay." He gently nods me on, but he does not prompt me as I try to gather my words. "Um... _Are_ you an angel?" My cheeks warm as I ask this. I find myself unable to look away from him but I try to, oh, I am so embarrassed... wh-what kind of a question is that..?

"Heh." His other hand finds one of mine, and he squeezes it slowly as he considers my question... l-like it is not something stupid and weird and... sh-shameful. "I am afraid I cannot answer, if you are unsure of it yourself. Not... truthfully, that is." Oh. A-Aw. I guess Trikko would have told me as much... probably.

Does that make Trikko real?

"U-Um! Is Trikko real!"

The grin fights any lingering concern for me as he murmurs, "Of course he is," and of course he is, he was here. That means... something. I-I can ask him about Trikko and everyone else... but I already know they are gone. So maybe not. This, um, this opens up other potential questions... but I wish I knew if he was not an _angel_... nnnng...

"Are you sure you cannot tell me if you are an angel or not?"

Despite my pouting, he looks nearly about to burst into laughter, releasing my hand and my face to wrap his arms around me. "My apologies... Dina. I am not truly here, you must know. There is only so much I can do for you. Your vivosaurs, all five of them, were most certainly here once. That much is true. But... there is so much gray between this and most any other topic."

I feel him... when he holds me. I mumble, "Okay..." and I rest my head against his, and one of his hands gently raises to stroke me. It takes me one, two, three moments of hesitation before I cannot help myself and tightly hug him back. His clothing is soft, red coat, striped pants... pointy boots. All very... expensive-looking. And warm. Like him. These must be... the last things I saw him wear. O-Oh. Of course. That makes... sense. I think.

"May I ask you a question?"

"Um... o-okay. I-I do not know if I can answer it very well though..."

He smiles into my head. "Do not worry. You can answer this one." Pause. "Are you upset with me?"

"N-Nnng!" I-I am still battling the acquisition of whether you are real or not... Th-This is hard... ohhh... I give into him and I sigh. "No..." His body is... so warm as he holds me, and then he sighs himself.

"I was worried. You sounded... so sad. And you looked so sad. Dina."

"Nnnn..."

And despite myself, while I know this is like Todd and must be a vain conglomeration of things he was, things he is, and maybe even a bit of how I think he is, and he cannot truly be here... I feel better. I feel better anyways. Because I remember then, so clearly... that I love him. That I loved him, before I lost myself to Zoazoa, and I still love him now too.

H-How can I not? He is... too kind...

But I... have to ask him. I-I think about it and I grow nervous and my heart races when I think about it but I... but I have to ask him. Even though I doubt the results there is a maybe, and I cling to it, my maybe. "What is your name? Can you... please tell me your name?"

He leans back, so that I can see his face, the sad smile, the lowered gaze. "My apologies. I cannot."

"O-Oh... Nnnng..." I tighten my hold on him. "But... But I have to call you something... E-Even if it is not your name... I want to call you something..."

He is joking. I hear it in his soft voice. "Angel?"

"N-Nnnnn! N-Nooo..." Whimpering, I nuzzle against him. "Please... what can I call you? Please... tell me..."

He is gentle... and very soft. "Dina... you know I cannot do that."

I sigh. "I know..." But I wish he could. But... oh, what do I call him? There are so many options and... and yet so few. So few that truly... match him. So few that convey how... how I feel about him. Oh. Oh... I could... I could... yes, I could—

"If it hurts you, Dina, you do not have to give me a—"

"N-Nooo, I dooo..." I mumble. When I look up, into him, there is a slight blush upon him. I giggle, then. "Um... can I... can I call you... um..." He waits, patient. "H-How about 'Beloved'? C-Can I call you my beloved?"

In a moment he has distanced himself from me. A pule rips from my lips and I dart toward him, and he cannot look at me, and a hand shields his face from me. "Dina." A wince. "Dina..." Sigh. "Moments ago you were wondering whether I was even real, and then... and then you..."

I bite my lip feebly, then lower my head. "I-I knowwww... I-I-I am sorry... I-I just... I just..." Oh... my feelings twist in my heart and I whisper, "I-I love you... you _are_ my beloved..."

He raises his head if but to look at me, his golden gaze weak. "You hardly remember me."

"I-I... I! I remember... I remember something." I step toward him. He watches me, gently. "I remember something important, a-and it is that without you my heart... hurts." The gaze grows softer. While not smiling... I think he wants to... cry. "I love you... R-Really!" I suck in a breath just to say it again. "I love you!"

And it is here that he cannot stay distanced any longer. Another step and he is there again, and gently he takes me in and holds me like he had before. "And I love you... Dina."

Hiding my head in his chest, I mumble, "I am sorry for yelling..."

"Heh. Dina... do not worry. Thank you... for telling me again. I... needed to hear it."

And the way he tells me, so softly, so weakly, so warmly... it makes me wonder if he is here too, in some small, almost insignificant portion, if there is a tiny piece of the boy I love himself here with me. I remember that too... in pieces: he needed constant reassurance, the constant knowing that who he cared about was there with him, that they did not... leave him. He was always so... hesitant, until I returned his affections wholly. Oh...

"S-So I can call you Beloved?"

I feel him stiffen for a moment around me. And then, "Yes... if you must." But I feel his smile as I giggle in turn, I feel it when his lips gently touch me. Before he turns back I gently cup his cheek then, and I press my lips to his and I feel his breath, warm and soft and sweet, collect upon me and his usually gently hold tightens about me and his lips are... so warm...

When I release, I suck in a small, shaky breath, and I giggle softly. "You are very cute... my beloved..."

With that he turns away, face heating, and he has no response. I go on giggling, louder, louder, until I cover my face and I hear him mutter something that I miss the meaning of. Something... soft.

"Sorry, um, what was that?"

He stiffens again. "I... I just said that you are cute as well." Oh.

"B-But you are cuter!"

He lowers himself, gently bumping his forehead against mine. "Dina, I cannot be cuter than a girl, especially not you."

I pout. "Nnnnn... Y-You are still cute, though." And he smiles softly, and he kisses my cheek.

"Thank you... my Dina."

"Eheh..." I smile back at him. "Thank you too, m-my beloved..!"

When I turn back, I remember the cliff, and I stop, staring at the edge. The feeling that there is something else there, that I am missing something important, something... _else_ , not important like him but another important entirely, tugs at me. But... But... how old a memory would it be if it is not within my... immediate... vicinity? If it is not from the Huricans but somewhere else entirely? Is this... Is _this_... no... _no_... It cannot be...

But then I realize I will not know anything about this part unless I start at the beginning, and then I get there. I am still... the _beginning_. My heart trills as I squeeze the hand of the one I love and _the beginning_ , it beckons me, and oh, Trikko was right, Trikko was so very, very right.

The cliff lowers back into the slightly-glowing earth as my beloved and I walk back through the ashes, hand in hand. He glows slightly, reminding me that he is not truly beside me, not yet at least, but the light, a warm yellow, spills upon the endless black horizon. I stop when I feel like stopping and I squat to take a handful of ash, and I release his hand to lift another, and I lean back and release them through the air, two little mobs of black that dissolve into one another and into the blackness beyond, and I think about the beginning. The words that come to mind are the only ones I have on hand, and there is not even emotion attached to them—yet, I remind myself, oh, yet—but I think them as loudly as I can. And then I say them.

"M-M...Mom..? D-Dad..?"

And then it hits me.

"B-Brother! I—I..."

It is so much I fall to my knees and my beloved stays beside me and helps me back up only when I get back up there is no more blackness and there is nothing without that frenzied tinge of light and there it is, a sharp amethyst, in front of me. There... _she_ is. Orange scales collect up her cheeks and her chest, a faint purple, is not... unlike mine. Long curls of amethyst hair layer down past her waist and her dark onyx arms beckon toward me, and I am caught within a hug.

Someone else is to the other side, long hair too but this is straight waves of white, a pale blue face, serious and tall but warm all the same. In his arms lay a... child. I must have been that age too, then, a child so small he barely fits within the arms of this man, a child whose orange face matches the woman, his spiny hair disheveled and there is a streak of orange, a strange little streak, mixed in layers of gray and black.

The word is in my mouth and I cough. "D-Dino." _Dino_. That— _he—he is Dino_. And the man is my... _dad_. And the woman—my mom. She is hardly any taller than me, currently, but he towers. And the boy... I realize I do not recall seeing him past this stage. As a child. My brother—my... twin brother. A boy... a brother... a-a flesh and blood and real brother, a loving brother, I-I think, _maybe,_ and even though maybe not is also a possibility the fact that there is a possibility at all hums inside of me and it is so thick with emotion I almost cannot take it.

We were a—a _people_ , with scales. And tails. And it was not different or weird at all, everyone... was like that. Wh-When I transformed into a vivosaur, that was a _battle_ form, for a... dinaurian. Wh-What a funny name, I cannot help but giggle at it but... but this is real. I know this, oh, the gap in my head, the memories I had not recovered for so long... I know this.

My mother. I look into the gentle amethyst eyes...and that is it, yes? "Amethyst. M-Mom." And she nods, giddy. The man I turn to and I whisper, "Dad... Dy-Dynal." Yes, Dynal. And I pause.

Dynal. It sounds... like Dina. L-Like Dino.

 _Dad_.

Pff... he was not very creative, was he? Somehow this is hilarious and I giggle as I hug him, this man of my memories, my dad, and then the noise. A guttural, overbearing, overwhelming noise, one that rumbles with the earth and sends the world shaking. I look around and there are the scaled people—dinoran—ah, no—dinaurian—and there is a starship up ahead, sleek and white, and everyone is disappearing into it and so am I. And these people begin to meld into... into _stone_ before my eyes, color and scales and people all frozen and hard and a mucky brown, and I look down at myself and so am I.

And where is my brother? Oh—Oh, beside me. And my dad is—my dad is holding me, holding us, all three of us in stone.

My mom is—

Oh. _Oh_.

She did not escape in time. Oh.

And the memories all melt away until I am left a heap of powerlessness in the arms of my beloved who is gentle and soft and holds me through it all as I cry about my dead mother and living—oh, _maybe living—_ brother and father and while it hurts there is this tingling, surging, overwhelming relief. A relief that maybe she is lost but she is also found... and I am full of her, and everyone else now, oh, I am overflowing... and I notice, giddy, oh, I notice, the gap in my head, the gap of amnesia is smaller now.

 **Dina done it! Dina remember! Man I got wayyyyy too giddy throughout all of this xD**

 **First of all she finally gets her memories back, at least some of them, and second I mean RUPERT (or is it rupert bumbummm? I mean obviously it's him though xD) and I dunno now I'm all happy for her hahaha**

 **poor baby finally stands a chance**


	23. Rt: The Alone Vivosaur

**Rupert: ...so now what do we do**

 **Dinu: ungrateful piece of crap**

 **Rupert: o.o; um... Dinu?**

 **Dinu: I go out of my way to haul your girlfriend into our uncomfortable situation and you stand there gawking at me, don't I get any retribution?**

 **Rupert: -winces- _Dinu_**

 **Dinu: and here you are!**

 **Rupert: Dinu, calm dow—**

 **Dinu: THERE IS NO CALMING DOWN, I'M PAST THAT POINT**

 **Luk: um**

 **Pauleen: oof**

 **Todd: this is one hundred and eighty percent not awkward**

 **Dinu: -glares directly at him and hisses-**

 **Todd: -face pales noticeably- heeheeeeeeee**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 23: The Alone Vivosaur

 _Rupert_

As soon as Dinu hauled the sickly girl into the cabin and shoved her into the first vacant mattress she could find—happening to be what else but Mier's bed—she stormed off to yell or punch or break something for her own amusement. No one went after her. The footsteps died down as they marched up the stairs and down again in jagged flurries of feeling and no one went after her. She stayed largely out of the way of all living souls in the steadily-crowding cabin and said living souls avoided her as much as possible.

Dinu is remarkably skilled in being unpleasant when she wants to be. Like a thorn in one's foot she lies underneath, irritably so, until the only viable solution is to allow her to fall into her graceless isolation. Though anyone could see why she was so hateful. She said it herself.

I watch her... as she sleeps. Sometimes. When I happen by her tiny, beaten frame in the midst of the sheets I stop and I hold my breath and my gaze levels over her. And it scares me, how much she resembles the girl I fell in love with, and yet how different I know she would be if those eyes snapped open and glimpsed at me. It... hurts. Sometimes. To watch her, to see the grueling lines of infected scars from places unimaginable and the matted curls, the limp gasps of breath, like drowning, like pain, like all she breathes in is knives. And that worries me, oh, how my heart clenches to see the war she fights amongst naught but herself.

Powerless. I despise feeling... powerless. So I watch her, like maybe that would help, though how is beyond me. Like... maybe... if I do see her again, if but for a moment, or if somehow in her sleep she senses me... then maybe I could be there. I do not know, I never think of it so much as to question why. But the throbbing in my chest is so strong. And she is so weak, oh so weak, it hurts me to hear her haggard breaths. If that alone is hard for me... then I fear when she wakes again.

So I only happen upon her sometimes.

It is not long after her departure to sleep that, aroused with our opening to the outside world again, Torn and his rowdy friends begin to seek their raja. It slipped my mind, having been on the cusp of our sudden new guest: they, however, are not of light heads. Torn struts, an air forming his steps, and his brilliant blue scales flash when his eyes sear over me. He hops upon the bed, bounces it a bit, hisses at the creature living inside of Dina, and turns again.

 _So when are we going?_ He allows me a moment of confusion. _Dammit, Rupert, we gotta find fucking Aladee! There's no fucking way he'll find his way here! He's... an idiot! And idiots are... stupid!_ A hiss wells up in his throat. _Fuck me and my shitty words, you know what the hell I'm trying to say._ Tail lashing, eyes suddenly restless, he glimpses toward the door out of the room again.

 _You're coming, right? I mean, shit, I get that your friends or whatever have shit to do—like I know what—but, but... Ahh, dammit, fine: Trikko said it'd be a good fucking idea to get one of you or something to come too. Because... fuck, I dunno, safety reasons._ He rolls his eyes, kicking safety reasons into a premature grave.

I almost smile. _Safety reasons are important, Torn. You begin to... realize that, the longer you stay in this cabin._ While he does not cross me, his eyes do. _It is... different. Here. I want to call it safe but I am hesitant to secure such a word to these borders... ah, it is of the sort. If you require my assistance, well... there is not much we have now to look toward anyways. And, um, besides—_

The dimetro grimaces, forked tongue flickering out of his maw. _Yeah, whatever, Dina's precious fucking vivosaur, gotta look good in her eyes._

 _That is... not what I meant._

He delivers me a hiss. _Like fuck it's not._ I try to dissuade him but he diverges again, hissing louder, and eventually I glance up at the ceiling a release a slow breath, because there is no arguing with one as stubborn as he. Let him think how he thinks; he never liked me in the first place. Though... maybe if I was in his place I would see similarly. Still, he preaches with quite the barbed tongue... it is tiring to hear him so constantly yell at me...

Trikko. I believe the tricera friend of this barbed creature has no qualms against me. Trikko is more of a redeeming sense as it is, anyways. _Would you prefer the assistance of others or not?_

And, of course, Torn bestows me with a second hiss, this one far nastier than the last. _Stop being so helpful! Dammit, fuck you! Fuck you and your good deeds!_ I try to ask him a second time before he derails further but his voice heightens at the hint of competition. _OHHH SHIT, AND YOU WANNA TELL ME OFF NOW, HUH? HUH? WELL YOU CAN JUST GO TO HELL RIGHT HERE AND NOW, CAN'T YOU! WHY DON'T YOU DO THE WHOLE LOT OF US A FUCKING FAVOR!_

Was this not Torn I may have felt a pinch of insult. But, well. _Torn_. I am not one to say. _Of course._ His body stiffens, further roused by my calm demeanor, but I am in no mood to hear more of his screeching so I shake my head and move on. Outside from the bedroom and leading toward the hallway. I am gentle with my foot, my foot wrapped so carefully in its hulking cast, and at least the pain has gone down... I hardly feel it.

Only, catching sight of the wound, I remember Gyntis and what he had to say about my untimely decisions and what demise they may lead me into. Still... oh, still... there cannot possibly be more leading on after this, can there be? Aladee. One last vivosaur, a tiny raja who ran too hard and grew too afraid once he returned to this world, as he tends to act in most any other situation, be it frightening or sorely lacking of it. Reyna spoke harshly of his sense, as she tends to do with most anything else, though the others reacted accordingly, and so it must be.

Such a small vivosaur... such a little thing. A little smile gently traces my lips as he reminds me of someone else I know. But... I have the ability to save him. So I should, yes? Of course... I should.

In my traipse toward the entranceway, where the others congregate, a hand clasps my shoulder and I turn to see Mier, his golden eyes cloaked in a sense of ease. Although the longer I stare the further I note the little breaches, the spiking nerves that bunch inside of him. His layered pink hair lies in messy waves about him and his jacket—this one thick and white—bunches in a way that suggests... fear.

My eyes I try to direct toward him, to ask what is wrong, but he seamlessly avoids me. "So what's going on now here? There's all this racket. I thought we already finished up with this stuff... Heh, wasn't Zoa herself enough excitement for one day?"

A worrisome layer raises like a film above the others, one striving for a calm that he does not feel deep inside of him.

"Mier, I..." Oh, I cannot look at him any longer; wobbly, my gaze drops. "I promised them. They need to find their missing vivosaur. It would be... wrong, with him gone. And he scares too easily to be trusted to find his way out on his own... This, um, this is important." My voice lowers as I whisper, "But I believe this should... be the last of them."

The last of them before I am out of ideas. Every last vivosaur, a group of people hopelessly searching for an opening in an unknown far too bleak to sift through. Ah, I need to feel... useful, at least for a little longer, for as much longer as I can. This is... too much, the powerlessness hiding as a veil behind it, behind Aladee. And here is Mier, his gaze clouded, his features hidden... oh, what is it with these ploys?

Deep breath. "It is not as if you need to come, either. This... well, it may take some time, finding Aladee, but once it is finished there will not be much of... anything left. And... we do need to find him. He is important, truly."

At some point in my quiet words a certain brunette has rounded and found us. Todd, smiling slyly, bumps his shoulder against mine. "Rupy! Rupy, what's going on here? Maaan, you're just full of angsty vivosaurs, huuuh!" He makes a great show of staring into the eyes of Reyna, of whom he knows he will garner no response to. "Geez! The angst levels are all-consuming!" And he giggles slightly, politely, before those big brown eyes force into me and it is obvious he is keen on whatever it is they are plotting.

"Aladee."

He nods. "Aaaah! Of course!" And he does not even ask; the wink of mischief lying there, open for all to see, is more than enough to prove he is coming too. "Well anyways I'm sure that Lukky and Pauleenie and Scary Dinu and Mier can watch the house for us, huh? No big. It's just two people and a bunch of vivos anyways, we'll be fine."

The grin lanced in annoyance that we are given only strengthens my worry. "You say that like I'm not right in front of you. Of course I'm coming too." Mier rolls his eyes at my stare, shrugging off any words I hoped to come up with to say something, oh, anything to that hopelessly empty gaze of his. "What? You'll need some protection. The both of you are pretty sad when it comes to the wilderness." And he plants his feet on the wooden floorboards and that is it, is it not?

"Maaan." Todd leans in, whispering heartily. "What's with him? I... I mean yeah, I'm a wimp, and yeaaah, your foot's brok—oh, oohhhhhh, oh that makes more sense. Yeah, of course he's coming too." And like that the boy is sated, eyes big and empty of the fear I must fully display. Perhaps it is in my head alone, these wayward thoughts, the way he spoke, the low gaze, the cloudy eyes, perhaps I look too much into too little things but since we met him Mier was hiding pieces of himself inside... and while I can respect a need for secrecy... the way he flaunts his silence is... ah... unnerving, to say the least.

"Well are we going or what?" And with that, the pinkette slides into the leading position so easily, Todd following, a bounce in his step. I glance back to call for she and whomever else feels a need to show up and—oh, thankfully—Mistress approaches quickly and quietly. Soon after—oh no—I hear the slick sound of fins upon the ground and there is _Camri_ in all of his disgusting, hopeless glory, if that is even what it is called.

Camri. What a cavalry. If there is anything I fear less it is the boy in the dress himself, jumping through snow piles, cramming snowballs, tossing them at Mier's head and missing every strike. He tried one at me but I guess the look in my eye dissuaded him, as that was the last time he turned my way. I... thank him for that, if but silently.

 _Dearie, it won't be so rough, will it?_ Mistress murmurs, glancing toward the low sky. _It'll be dark soon, and the others didn't think it'd be so bad, and plus some of them were already setting to watch for ancients in the case of one showing up at night, something, anything... But ohhh, I can't shake this feeling of dread down deep in my soul... mmmmf..._ She releases a thick, heavy sigh, like that of a blanket thrust upon my shoulders. _I just worry, dearie, oh..._ And another sigh follows.

I ask her softly, _Mistress, if you wear thin, you have no need to come along. Besides, most of the others found this inconvenient enough._ It is only to be expected there will be times where they desert me, where there are times they feel enough not to condone themselves to my side. And who am I to force them? I forced them into solitude for so long enough... it must have been, oh, grueling to live beneath me.

Beneath me. My lip twists. That is... Myself so sorely separated from their side that I was untouchable.

 _Beneath me_. That sounds so... wretched. My tongue hardly trifles in it and even the touch of it, those heavy words... I try to cease the notion before I think too long and too hard about it. Before my worry grows so thick inside of me; I have plenty enough as it is.

Gently my eyes raise; still Mier refuses any offering toward him. Todd, having leveled off to my side now, jumps about happily and carelessly sends pieces of snow flopping at his feet. Some of it scrapes over my cast, which, while sturdy, still comprehends enough of when blocks of ice rattle against its hard shell. And Mier is so quiet, and somehow his silence chills me, and I find it hard to speak.

Well. Out of seven vivosaurs—ten including the three Todd stores in a pocket—one of them is bound to grow salty. _Mm. If I've ever seen it before in my life, this is quite the awkward walk. Goodness. What is it with everyone? I get that it's cold, but it's not that cold. Not really. And hey, if it's anything to look forward to, Dina's more or less returned. Sort of._ The deep, lumbering prowl of a tone could only belong to the proud tricera nearing front. He never struck me as a conversational type, but it is not strange either, his horned head held high, a casual gait.

 _Yes, but... oh, Trikko! You can't just toss all the bad things under the dark or something!_ Nyra, from beside him, chirps thickly. _We still know it's there! And you're right, this is pretty awkward! I mean, where_ is _Aladee, anyways? Ohhhhh... Do we just keep yelling ourselves silly until he shows up?_

From wherever she is, Reyna scoffs. _It's not as if that wouldn't take forever._ And thus she nimbly slams her skull into a tree. _AaaAUGH! TORN, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO WARN ME._

 _I am? Dammit, Reyna, warn your fucking sel—oh oh oh shit shit fuck that's right never mind I didn't say a fucking word._ Cough. _Uh. Sorry?_ His regret is underwhelming.

 _Whatever. See! This is why we need Aladee! He pays attention to these sorts of things! My_ gosh _! See, there's not enough people in this world who remember that not everyone has their stupid privilege called eyesight—or freaking hearing, for that matter—but he does and that's a virtue!_ She snorts, then, as if to take back from her palpable hatred, her dark body blending into our surroundings, slowly bathing into a deeper and richer dusk.

Pause. Torn mutters, _So, uh, shit. Do we just keep going forward and making a racket until he shows up or something?_

Quiet for a moment. It is Todd who finally pauses to glance back at us and suggest, "I mean, if I was a wayward raja, all tiny and stuff like him in the snow, I'd probably go back to that cave we all were crammed in back earlier, right?" He is... surprisingly shy, when around Torn. I hardly noticed the absence of his voice outside of Mier's silence and all Torn provides until he revealed himself again. "Trees are uncomfortable to hide behind for a long time! I, uh, I mean, I don't speak from memory but that's probably true. Yeaaah." He puffs rosy cheeks and points aimlessly toward our right. "That makes sense, doesn't it?" directing his attention thus all my way, in opposition with where his hand waves.

"I—" Blushing, I look away. "I—yes, that would... that would be probable." I bite my lip. "Most s-surely." Oh, dear... The cave we stayed in after the highly unpleasant confrontation with my father is not an event I enjoy recollection of. My thoughts return to Luk, to leaving, to the starts of a blizzard I walked myself into, to—to _Illit_ , the fanciful ancient who all but disappeared.

To unhappy things that are sour in the back of my throat. Sour and sad and simply unsightly. I want to believe I... I am better than that.

Hah. But I still run away sometimes. So maybe not.

In our dumb silence, we streak our gazes over to the boy with the cabin who lived there for his entire life, as far as we know, and all he has to offer is a slight shrug. "Yeah." Dull voice. "Probably."

Why come if so... Oh, _Mier_... What happened? What is it? But as much as I want to ask him I am also a little afraid to, if but for the violence sparking dangerously behind a misty air, so I leave it be where it was. As much as I prefer the truth, if the only way to cease from a lie is to not speak at all, then so be it. Mier always approached when he wanted to; he was never one to enjoy being, ah, forced upon. Very... himself. He never goes out of his way to help someone else, he never takes on more than he knows he can accomplish, and he purposely puts on a front to those he first meets out of naught but curiosity.

And I cannot help but worry at how quiet he has come. Perhaps a little quiet, he was but... oh, this anxiety...

Mistress trots beside me. _The cave it is, then, dearie._ There are no better options. Even if Aladee does reside in the trees... well. At least check the cave first. How would he situate himself into a branch anyways? While of a slight form, that does not mean he is not a biped of large back legs and small arms and a small body overall that would not be very suitable to the environment thick bark offers.

No. He is a vivosaur of the earth. Rocks, _caves_.

And so the cave it is. Nyra sails overhead, just to be safe, searching for any sound of the missing raja, often rippling out from the cover of our large ranks in order to check nearby patches of trees or boulders or mysteriously large packs of snow. She sometimes sits on the tops of those and then it caves in and sends her tumbling, the poor nycto ace made a fool, far from the elegance they supposedly appear as. Most of the vivosaurs have taken larger, more comfortable forms, easier to look and easier to be seen and much, much stronger in the face of an enemy.

But it seems there are no ancients out tonight. I try not to admit it to myself, I try to ignore it, but when a particularly edged shadow crosses our path or I think I hear a twig crack that was further likely to be someone in our group _walking_ , I press closer to Mier, even in his sullen outlook his company comforting for... for me. Neither of us acknowledge it and I try to pay more attention to the galumphing Todd sets off to accomplish, to misleading conversations and poor attempts at humor... but I come back to it.

Mier does not step away, though. He lets me stay near him. I think he does not admit it to himself either. The near-murderous look in his face is haunting to say the least, and I try to ignore that as well.

When Reyna begins to speak but softly. _He must be scared out of his mind right now._ She swallows. Nervous. _Did he ever tell you? He sometimes would talk about it, about the thing that used to be his fighter before he found us. Er, I came after him, but you know what I mean. He'd talk about it all the time around me, I think it's because he got deaf confused with the fact that I still heard his thoughts, but it eased him. Talking._

Some of the others begin to stir and lull out of their own feelings as she whispers. As if panicked. As if in pain. _But he still did it anyways, whatever it was. I'm sure you've all heard snippets, Torn, Trikko. He was messed up when he first came in, wasn't he. Really messed up. Poor terrified little thing. Must've been awful._ Another deep, ragged breath. _And oh help me but I keep thinking about how scared out of his head he must be right now. Aladee couldn't take anything, he was just as bad as Dina. Scary noise in the middle of the night and he's not sleeping for another week. Or maybe not a week, but you get the point._

 _And you know,_ she whispers this part ever so softly, _sometimes I think about it, about the kind of monster who'd mess up someone as sweet as him so... horribly. Just... I just get so caught up thinking about it, about how awful it must be to get so... ulh, abused._ She is so quiet about it one could mistake it for a hard breeze. But speak it she does, nervous, quiet, as we round down the big hill that hooks around the left where the pocket of a cave lies.

Snow bites at my exposed flesh, brushing past pale cheeks, pale lips, eyes that hover along the horizon as it dips into the night. I like it, darkness. The stars shining bright. It feels... comforting. Quiet, people sleeping...

I happen to glance up at the pinkette beside me as Reyna unfolds the feelings thick and heavy in her heart, and I happen to chance upon the sudden surge in his face, of something, something hard, something beautiful, something so blessedly torturous there are no words. And I watch that mess of emotion plow at him... and I wish I knew what to say. I wish I had words for him. I wish I... felt like I knew him well enough to... help.

Mier stirs, then. "People can be awful, huh." Reyna nearly trips and falls when she realizes someone responded to her. "Yeah. Vivosaurs... can be awful too, can't they." And there is a silence at that. "I'm just saying. It can be... pretty awful. Yeah." He toys with his words but... I think he does not know how to say it either. And I think that is what he has been struggling with this entire time, just exactly what he needs to say, to say to... I want to think me, or Todd, or maybe all of us, all of the people he let loose in his cabin.

 _Wow. This is depressing._ The sardonic smile stretches along my lips as I close my eyes and shake my head. Oh, who else but Camri. _Let's talk about something else._

Mistress leaps at this. _Yes, let's!_ But then she pauses, head sinking toward the snow. _I don't have any ideas... Camri, dearie, what should we do to get our minds off of the filthy mess in front of us?_

There is a slight quiet between the vivosaurs in curiosity for what exactly is going to fly out of the mouth of this idiotic krona. _We could always talk about myself, of course._ It is... softer, this time, somehow, gentler. _Heh._ A wistful sensation flows from him and crawls up my throat, slowly, slowly. _Auh, stop staring at me like that, the lot of you; you'll ruin my complexion, and that is a horribly disastrous crime to commit!_

No. I cannot help the almost-smile as it drags at my lip. No, he is still the same Camri. And it goes on like that, quietly, solemnly, for some time, our breaths gathering in front of our faces, the sky growing white with hot air that dissipates into a snowy, grayish cloud, and this too hovers until its conform to the stark, dark inkiness of the night. Tiny stars dance far above our heads; a slight, crooked moon sneers down upon us and our petty problems. My eyes sting when I glance upward, each sharp light as if taking a bite out of my eyesight.

The krona stirs again. _Now this is just getting worse. Rupert, you invited the wrong people to our party; do you feel how glum they are? This is awful, Rupert, freaking putrid! Don't you realize it? C'mon, you see this, too! You should've just taken_ me _with you!_

Torn or Reyna or probably both have a few choice words to say to that, words that Camri promptly ignores.

 _Because the world revolves around you, now, does it not?_ I murmur. While refraining from direct response, the curl of his lip signifies his answer. _See it that way if you will._ I am not in the mood to chastise him yet again for his personality. That is not a kind way of looking at most anything, not really. For being merely someone, to displease someone else... ahh, the traits of this krona. No, he is not like Reyna, nor the dilemma Dina faced in the personalities of her vivosaurs.

A soft voice, then, in the back of my head, asks me why I have yet to lose him myself... not unlike the way Aladee was treated by his old fighter.

My eyes hover toward the ground. My cheeks sting too, now. My fingers, my ears. There is little else that shows beneath layers of thick clothes but what does is an onslaught and I feel my nose leak from the blows and I wince. Oh, how my eyes water...

I cover my face and not a second after Todd bumbles into me. "Rupert! Rupert, what was that noise?! It was so quiet but it... but..." His eyes layer in on me. "Oh. _Oh_. You're one of _those_ guys, huh, now are you? With the soft sneezes, huh?" And with that, he flutters back from me, flicking a hand in the air. "Oh, to be pompous!"

"T-Todd, this is not about being pompo—"

"Nooo, it really is." I sigh and quit my argument as he fluffs his dress about him. "Youuuuu are a snobby pompous boy!" Points his finger at my face, hovering but inches away. "And... And you know what kinda... uh, uh uh—what kinda _roofs_ snobby pompous boys have on their houses?" Oh, dear. " _Stilted_ ones! Ohhhh, that was a good one!"

A hand I rest upon a part of my face, smiling weakly. "Todd, that was of no such sort. It hardly made sense. And why roofs, of all things?" He shoves against me again after that.

"Because roofs are the first thing I could come up with! Lesse, I'm sure I've got some _even better_ ones stored up in my secret arsenal somewhere... hmmmm! Ooh, how about this!" A part of me considers to only feign interest and daze out of the conversation but another, larger, morbid piece of me is curious as to what concoctions he will attempt in the next five seconds that he most likely came up with in the same sitting or less. "So, so we've got a booger and a butt." _Todd._ I take a palpable step back from him but he only shoves at me a second time. "Anyways, they're in a bar... because that's where everyone in a joke has a conversation! Now the butt orders—I mean, no, the _booger_ orders something really high-class while the butt gets, y'know, a _bum_ drink, obviously.

I think I have passed the place where I respectfully zone out of this mess. Oh, morbid curiosity. Oh, _Todd_. "The bum drink's super cheap, y'know, cuz _bum_ "—yes, I know, Todd—"and the booger's high-end whatever mess is sooooo expensive the butt just looks at him and goes 'Man, you're such a _snotty_ person!' Hahaaaaa! You get it? You get it, totally! _Booger_? _Snot_? Haaaaaaa! And the bum thing was completely an accident! Man, I'm so good at this!"

It is Torn that confirms otherwise. _FUCKING TODD, THAT WAS A WRECK AND YOU KNOW IT! IIIII FUCKING HATE YOU, UGH, YOU DISGUSTING FUCKING BRAT DWEEB!_

Trikko snorts. _What kind of an insult is 'brat dweeb'? Torn, are you loosening up your tongue there?_ And he chortles lowly at that.

 _DAMMIT TRIKKO, I USED THE WORD 'FUCKING' LIKE TEN TIMES IN THAT SENTENCE!_

Sigh. _Torn. First of all, that was two sentences, not one. Please at least attempt to understand the grammar behind syntax. And secondly, that was three, not ten._ His words are nearly drowned out by the ensuing screech, but I still catch the majority: _But you won't listen, ...ll you? You're Torn, you ne...er listen._ And he leaves it like that, smug yet sore.

Todd mumbles something under his breath about how _he_ thought it was a good joke; unfortunately for he, no one assures him that that is so.

As we approach the bottom of the hill—how my stomach knots at the thought of climbing up it again after finding Aladee—the approach of beating wings on the horizon alerts to a certain nycto ace. She perches upon the back of the large, blue-and-red tricera, his thick form hoisting her lithe one in the air, to the likeness of a pedestal. _I'm sorry! I didn't really spy anything out of the ordinary! I promise as many times as I circled that he simply wasn't there! Ahh, and I want to think he'd come out if it was me, right? I'm his... friend!_

Oh, unsure Nyra. With a snort, her blind and deaf companion mutters, _Yeah, if there's anyone he likes, it's the happy peppy one who doesn't even believe in him to know her when he not only sees and hears her too, but feels her presence. Heck, I'll show up and I can't function two of the three on my own. Well, usually. You know how I am._ Reyna yawns softly, pointing her head back around where the old cavern lies.

 _I guess that means he's there, then. Huh._ She releases a low breath, one lanced of tension. Her nerves squeeze mine and without thinking of it, my gaze slowly circles about us, lurching toward dangerously-raised trees or suspicious shadows or—or... But I know that if there was nothing there before then there is nothing there as of current.

That is... usually. I step closer to Mier. Distant or no, he... makes me feel safer. A... friend. I never made a friend myself before. Dina... approached me, mostly. The others came with her. Luk hardly counts, and it is the same for Dinu. Oh... my heart hurts thinking of it all. So I... so I try not to. Not so much.

A thick breath and once at the bottom of the long, snowy hill, we turn and there it is, big and gaping and hollow and brown. Moving beneath the overhang, I raise a hand to gently press cool fingers against the overlapping stones and the chill stored within them causes me to intake sharply and remove my hand with a jolt. I bump into Mier when I do so; his body, warm, shocks me again, the stark feeling within him. While nervous, I hover closer; he does not shift, so far as I can determine.

The shadows of the cave lie heavy upon us; tiny sluices of light ring stones toward the ground and ceiling, but all that meets us up ahead is a gaping mouth of black, an airy tongue streaking and squirming around us the closer we get. Not much further and the back pools there.

Memories poke at me: at sitting here, breaths bated, head clouded, thoughts racing, unable to stop thinking, horribly, about my father's appearance, about his lurching on into an already disastrous occasion to see what he can scrounge of it for whatever blasphemy he wanted this time. Me. And... ancients, was it? I am almost not sorry to have not seen him since that encounter, if only it did not leave me empty without knowing where he lies onto now...what he is _doing_ without any watchful eye there.

Zoazoa... might. But might not too. She is weak and frantic and he is a great hulking mass of a man; while tapered at the waist his form is tall and he breathes of a world I cannot even imagine, something else entirely, something else murderous enough to give him the strength I always remember whispering in the back of my head when I lived in that mansion of his.

It is only when Mier shifts a hand upon my shoulder that I realize I had stopped. Lungs icy, breaths weak, heart faint beneath layers of fear and doubt and apprehension and memories, oh, the memories that cover me from so many years of so many... _things_.

I-I stop thinking about him then.

One of the rocks, curled up in a corner, shifts beneath my gaze. The red markings upon the back I realize are strange for a rock, and while not all that strange the yellowed spines certainly are, not to mention the white inlaid furs about the colors, binding them together above a hide of terracotta. Shimmering scales that faintly dip within the light, mostly shadowed by a darkness as if to mask the rank of fear surrounding him, as well as the shivering. The awful... thick, heavy shivering.

His whimpers are quiet but each one pierces harder into my head until I cannot help it and step closer to him. My feet—oh curse this clunky cast—are thunder on the rocks and the poor thing's head shoots straight up into me, fear-laden eyes wild of a frenzy that chills me to my core. When I whisper _Aladee_ the recognition that slams him nearly knocks me to the ground.

 _Ru...Ru...Rupy._ Whimper. He swallows. _Rupy?_ Swallows again. His eyes keep darting off of me. _Rupy? R-Really really? Wh-Why'd you take so long, Rupy?_ Another swallow. His breaths are thicker and thicker in his lungs until I finally sense he is breathing, actually breathing. _Ruuupy! Din-Din misses youuuuuuu!_

After that I slowly sit in front of him. The ground chills my legs, every layer beneath promptly bypassed. _R-Really, Aladee._ It is always hard to focus again after one of them says that. _Aladee... um... I..._

His eyes wander further, back and back and back through the cave, hacking at any darkness as if it was permissible. He must sense the others through the earth too. _Hrrmn... Rey-Rey... Nyra... Toddy... I—_

He looks up. I don't catch at what. _NO! NO NO NO NO! NOOOO!_

In a blinding second I look back and he is gone. I start up and once again bump into the pinkette beside me, who watches, bewildered, at the edge of the cavern's lip. Nyra immediately shreds through the air, screaming the name of her friend, and most of the vivosaurs follow, quickly, quickly, Todd in pursuit. His dress ties at his feet so he hikes it to the best of his ability and in the process accidentally scatters his medals; with a cry his own vivosaurs launch out into the horizon too, and he quickly follows after.

Aladee's cry drenches the back of my skull, the piercing pule of a voice pulpy and thick in my head, and so... fragile, it hurts to hear, again, again, again.

Eventually I turn and ask Mier, "D-Did you catch what he saw?"

"No." Simply, quietly. "No I didn't."

I start back and bump into the wall next. His voice... is heavy, and faint, and _careful_ , I note, sickeningly careful in the way he words it, because no, he saw exactly what it was that terrified Aladee and now he is going to lie to me about what it was.

He lied to me.

Lies. I... I force my head away from his, and I step back quietly. My heart throbs. It is hard to breathe.

Lies. Pressing my lips together, I mutter, "Ah," and I surge forward, but I am slow.

My father constantly lied to me, whether he was conscious of it or not.

I try not to think of that now as I tear myself past a brisk walk, if only this cursed cast would allow any more speed than this pathetic length. Whether or not he follows I am unaware; all I do know is that Mier does not come after me, but leaves some amount of a gap between us, enough I cannot even hear him through the chilling silence of the night.

Wind picks up speed about me, fluttering and clutching at various strands of hair and snippets of fabric, dragging me forward. I traipse carefully back up the hill again: numerous pairs of clawed toes lead back up here, and the further forward I glimpse the closer I can see the lone trail of tiny prints resigned ahead of the others.

Soon after I find the vivosaurs halting, and soon after I reach their mottled mixtures of green and brown and blue and gray. Todd lies there, his cheeks inflamed, his body having taken up a slight shimmer. "Look," he whispers, "look, Rupy," grasping my hand, pointing our entwined fingers forward at the shaky body that collapses just in front of us after hesitant wavering. Aladee is reluctant to peer out at his entourage; when he does he is so slow and so stiff that several times it appears as if he is forcing himself to move, slamming his body unto function he cannot bear himself to commit to. And his breath, oh, tiny billows of ripe pain in the air, they are so small and so shallow and so swift his heart must have been sluiced through his tiny chest.

"Wh-What happened?" I pull closer to my friend; in return, Todd shrugs against me.

"We just... got here. And he's acting all funny now. Hmnnnn... is it cuz we smell like a new person? Aladee's sucky with strangers, y'know." Todd lowers his weak caramel eyes and releases a small breath. "People scared him. Er. Scare. But then again he's been out in the snow for however long, not to mention the avalanche thing, so anything goes..." Raising his head again, the eyes dart nervously about. "Gaaaah, I wish I knew..."

For a moment I stay there, pressed against him, and my head bumps by his and I catch a glimpse of something I think he was trying to hide. There is fear, oh, fear, thrust down deep inside of him, and he shakes so, and his absent hand aimlessly lifts to his stomach and he winces. And I remember in a breath, oh... oh, that is right: Todd was never a fighter. As exuberant and uplifting as he gets he was... afraid. So much so he would find himself with these stomach cramps and out of shame blame them on poor food. Oh, Todd.

I remember the first round of the Caliosteo Cup. I remember his vivosaur striking Trikko, landing him hard in a pack of dust and it was difficult to make out by the streaming fanatics and the vivosaurs retreating but... sometimes I wonder if he was the better fighter, back then, if he was... supposed to win. Dina... told me that, once.

Todd...

"We can come back later," softly I offer, forcing the words out of my lips before I lose my nerve. "We can bring the others, we can ask him what is the problem then, we can—"

He stiffens; the fear dissipates beneath layers of carefully-colored pride. "Nooooo, Rupy... it—it's fine." He shakes his head, cheeks reddening. "I'm fine. I-I'm fine." The hand drops from his stomach and clenches into a fist. "I-I'm fine. S-Seriously. S-S-Stop worrying about me or... or whatever."

Of course he senses it too. Of course he saw the way Mier acted. Of course he knows something terrifyingly great is about to happen and change everything, for all that we know.

Swallowing, I shake my head. "Yes, ah... my apologies. Do ignore my plea."

"Pff." He bumps against me again, consciously this time. "Okie-dokie, I'll _ignore_ your _pleeaa_." Snort. When he glances over and meets my flushed state, ah, Todd, he just laughs, and laughs, head back.

And then Aladee has shoved his eyes into ours and we go quiet, horribly quiet, my core frigid and relentless and those tormented, tortured eyes gouge into me and hold me there. I think I stop breathing. I cannot tell. Not until he is gone and then my lungs clench inside of me and I burst into a soft fit of coughs, fingers over my lips, head down.

The night hisses around us, stinging of chill, hinting of... of...

Soft... soft footsteps behind us. I release Todd without another thought and turn and... and there again. Mier. A blast of wind thrusts me forward and I stumble in front of him and try to pick myself up and catch the faint hint of clouds, clotting the stars, one fat puffy swirl having ducked under the moon and the light grows dim. I inhale and a ball of ice sticks into my lungs and I cough again, weakly, softly, wiping at teary eyes, trying and trying to pull myself up again. A soft moan flutters from my lips. Snow dazzles my face and leers by, cutting skin, cutting tears, cutting off any warmth I managed to contain prior. Laughing at me as I tilt and nearly tumble again, valiantly forcing my way back up through the sudden storm.

When I raise my head his eyes meet mine. Hollow things: smashed open like vases and trembling and a weak, weak glow of gold that threatens to putter out, thrown and blasted by the forces of wind around him. A single tear, glistening, leaks out from his eye and streaks down his cheek and stabs somewhere into the snow below.

"Mie—" I manage before the wind steals my air and I struggle not to cough all over again, staring up at someone who is not the boy I knew at all, or who I thought I did once. My hair flickers by my face and my bangs lift from my head and as his hair whips about him the moon is yanked into sight again and a glow etches down the angles in his soft pink pale skin.

A warmth lifts my chin. I try to peer down at it. A thumb punctures by my lip, cutting softly into skin. Fingers cradling the side of my jaw as I stare up at hauntingly clouded pupils staring back at me.

Lips stretched into a faint grin, Mier presses his forehead into mine and whispers so softly the wind rakes through his words. "Mier, Mier, _Mier_ , I swear, that's _all_ you ever say."

A memory dangles in front of me, fitfully clenched by my eyes.

"Boooo _ooooyyyyy_ , you sure made him fight me, uh?" A pink tongue flickers and addresses cracked lips, so close to mine it just so grazes my own. "What are you anyways?"

A boy who I thought was a boy but maybe not was a boy, the pink hair, the voice hinting at southern and a soft drawl that could have been feminine but tilted toward masculine too, piercing golden eyes, a golden human head as an earring, the way he cut off his own words and that voice he speaks in now is not the voice he used with me.

She used with me.

Something that may have once resembled a cry weakly spills from my throat. She giggles softly. " _Reeaa_ lly?"

Then I hear Aladee. Then his voice splinters through my skull and it is all I hear for throbbing, throbbing seconds:

 _THAT'S THE BOY WHO OWNED ME, THAT'S MY FIGHTER, THAT'S THE OLD FIGHTER, RUPY, WHAT'S HE DOING ON YOUR FACE? WHY IS HE THERE? RUPY WHY IS HE WITH YOU? I THOUGHT YOU TRUSTED DINA I THOUGHT YOU TRUSTED ME I THOUGHT YOU I THOUGHT YOU I THOUGHT YOU I—_

"Shut up, you _wench_ ," hisses the female inside of him and Aladee immediately silences. Mier eyes me again. "I spent two thousand years inside of this body, sharing it with naught but a painter boy as company... it was so, ohhh, ex _cit_ ing to see someone else for once... mmmmmh, what a shame, what a shame he tried to ruin it... tried to tell you, innit he? I mean yeah, I guess that little runt already did but Mier tried oohhh, ss _ssso_ hard to warn you, you _poooor_ thing... mmmh..."

The tongue flickers again. I try to move and find myself incapable.

"Ahh that's fine... that's fine... You _liked_ Mier, didn't you? Well I'm sure you wouldn't give me any ideas to _hurt_ him now would you?"

Soft and seductive and hot and slimy and empty and cold and hard and lying, lying, oh...

Mier was never Mier at all...

Her thumb bites into my cheek as a tear overlaps it.

 _Illit_ was here the entire... time...

My gaze spins.

Two thousand years... or maybe _more_ , oh, two thousand years...

I close my eyes and I think I feel something deep inside of me break.

Was it so wrong... to want for a friend in him..?

 **Oh my gosh that was so intense! Ahh...**

 **MIER'S POSSESSED GUYS**

 **WAS MIER EVER REAL IN THE FIRST PLACE?**


	24. Rt: Savior

**And we return! With Rupy, of course, cliffhangers are no fun, I didn't mean it like a cliffhanger either! I meant it like... the way to finding Aladee was an adventure in its own so they couldn't go in the same chapter for that chapter would be sloppy and insanely long and I would lose my mind writing it... or something. If you ever so much as glanced at A Deaf Flame's Flicker you can vouch on me as every last one of those chapters is over 10,000 words long and it is... it is _something else_**

 **Todd: I get nervous sometimes when you're all rambly and stuff like that**

 **Rupert: ...but she's constantly rambly and nervous**

 **Todd: yeah but... but she's like _specifically_ rambly nervous, like it's a specific _mood_**

 **Rupert: there is a difference? Todd, I assure you Starry has no end in her constant on-edge personali—**

 **Todd: yeaaaaah I guess**

 **Todd: but**

 **Rupert: ...yes?**

 **Todd: but like _this time_**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 24: Savior

 _Rupert_

 _sssssssssssssiiiihhhhhshhhhhhhhhHHHPSSHH!_

A layer of water blasts the creature aside, not without leaving long, winding lines scratched into my skin, a few of them immediately running over red. A glance leftward only for a baffled krona to meet my nervous eyes and I am at speechless at that. All but weak breaths have left me.

When Mier was wrenched away, so was a piece of me... I-I think. So I focus on what I have left first. On breathing. A shaking finger streaks at one of the bloody wounds and attempts to wipe away ruby droplets only coming back stained and smeared and smothered as I feel the overflow trickle down my cheek. It itches. Oh, hot, rancid, horribly itches, a kind of itches that so much as I desire will not leave me be and I try not to laugh as I stare back into the eyes of a person I once knew.

 _PaaaahHHCK!_

Todd is the one who... revives me, be it called such a thing. I jolt back from the palm on my cheek and the stinging pain left beneath it and fiercely glimpse back around the steeply-inclined night and I misplace a step somewhere and trip and land awkwardly upon the snow. Carefully I press numb hands into the packed earth and tilt my world upright again. Breaths rake out of me like splintering ice. I am surprised even the slightest touch of warmth sparks along my lips after each one... while the moon and the stars shine so feebly there is still some amount of light left, and when I lift a hand there is hardly a color to perceive there.

A silhouette streaks further back through the darkness. I reach out after them only to find that, woozy, I hardly reach further than a step when the sky pitches beneath me again and that becomes my focus. Oh, standing, oh... My head, so light and stuffy and thick and weak and I can hardly think outside of these pangs, so far as I can see the light is too dim to make out of, the atmosphere too cold to think from any hints left haphazardly behind.

A light, then, flickers along my vision: the krona. Camri. His fluid body, slathered in liquid, catches what little spark in the sky is left so quickly my eyes follow him. He must feel the eyes collect, or perhaps he was always so slow, but either way his thick, slender, finned body treads through air and snow and water droplets alike to go onward past the night, easily enough for even I to comprehend.

Stop. Swallow. Head... aching. Through a haze I lay myself bare for my krona... and... I realize, however cumbersomely it is, that he does not disappoint. A small trove of trees comes and goes and Camri keeps tall and particularly shiny. Further past the patches of pasty black surroundings thin until all that remains is a plain of snowy banks and there I witness it.

A slow step, relishing release, as it kicks upward and out from the neatly deposited body nestled in the snow. Maw split toward the horizon, a yawn of a yell morphing into a cry that shivers down deep within my heart and stays there... and those haunting, melodic gold eyes come to face me.

Todd again. His figure tears past and nearly slams into—or perhaps through—the slowly-materializing ancient and tan, outstretched fingers so nearly clasp the pale soul beneath it but a yell and a swat and the green smudge flickers out of my vision. He rustles, shaking himself, with a sneeze, and pulls himself up from a nearby snowbank. The downward slops lies toward my left, past the little trove and further beyond.

As my eyes recuperate, they come to close upon the brunette behind Illit, his fuzzy figure shaking off snow, pulling back parts of his tattered fabrics. A slight distaste has developed. His lips he holds tightly together, and I think at first it is for annoyance: but moments pass and a quiver escapes.

One step. Two—and I need to stop again but for my aching head. My thick gaze levels off at the boy in front of me again, if but slightly nearer now. Todd inclines his head. The lips part. Clumsy repetition and my eyes catch on: he mouths words... but I have to move mine in turn to decipher what in the world he is trying to tell me until it pulls off my tongue: _Geehhtt hellllp, gehht heeelllp..._ Again, again, tirelessly, ceaselessly.

I doff my head with what nod I can muster. He bites at his lip. I try again. Exhale, oh, the both of us. And I go on to press closer, and I try my own. _You?_ directing it stark at him and that quaking, quaking face. So far as he push he declines and pulls back, again and again, and then he himself cries _YOU_ in a silence so loud I pause there... and with another quick look at his shameless fear I start on, harshly to the right.

Illit swipes at me with a very real paw as I go; a blast of water meets the open grip and she cries. My head drops at the peal.

She was not injured in the slightest. But it is enough, Camri's distraction, and with a duck and another dash I manage out of her reach until she must deem it far better to first deal with the mortals at her feet than the one in escape.

I go on soundly for silent seconds, my feet peddling snow when there it hits me like a blow and I fall to my knees and have to work myself up again, face heating. Because it reminds me of that time we ran from the ancient, Mier and Pauleen and myself— _Illit the entire time—_ and when he— _she—_ told us to run, to run from the ancient... and dare I say she _saved_ me. A look I cast sickeningly at the heavy fabric wrapped about my broken foot, the one _she_ listed to place again, the way _she_ spoke with me so softly as she did... and the little smiling Dina _she_ painted on it.

Because Mier does not do things outside of what he can provide seamlessly. Only what matters to him.

A weak smile escapes me and I collapse again. The smile decimates; a wet, soft cry pierces my throat.

Before I know it the tears consume me, my shaking body, my lack of warmth, my throbbing pain that arcs up and down and up again through so many levels of myself that I lose track and count altogether. And I wonder why I trusted him, oh, why I trusted him at all when such an issue of mine was how _much_ I despised liars...

Hope... Is that all it takes, one tiny golden string of hope to stitch holes into my aching soul and then leave me empty? W-Well what a sorry creature I must be... one so thoroughly ravaged by it...

I glimpse back at the cast; a tear flickers and falls and lands squarely upon Dina's painted forehead.

Then I know, a deep ache in my heart and in my soul, oh, I know, I need to get up, I need to keep going anyways; but then of course I must ask myself if anything _Mier_ ever told me was even true? If anything _Mier_ promised me will ever matter anyways? Told me I could _save_ her, no? If I bloody went _impossible—_ oh, what folly...

A soft exhale. Then I right myself up... and I continue on. First but staggering steps by one of misty eyes and guesses, and an unsightly amount of tears. But as I wear on forward I grow surer, and so do my surroundings; there to my right lies the thickset forest we scrounged in search of Pauleen... so on my left... yes, glowing of light from people indoors and candles, the cabin.

I go in. Faces and names blur as the wooden door slams shut on its own behind me, hitting my heels as it falls. I think of Todd, of leaving him behind, and I think of Torn and the others too—and I try to breathe quietly as I search the dimly-lit hallways... and it is not long for a person to encounter me. Pauleen—the pink stripes of hair—the dark skin—the big, emerald eyes. And the shouting, too.

"WH-WHAT THE HELL? RUPERT! RUPERT? WH-WHAT IN THE NAME OF HELL JUST HAPPENED!"

It takes her numerous tries to realize that the louder she gets the more unlikely it is for me to respond, and in her impatience she goes and snatches my head, cupping my chin, and scrubs furiously at the blood streaks down my face. "J-JUST EXPLAIN THIS, WOULD YOU? J-JUST EXPLAIN, PLEASE." Deep, wet, sucking breaths, another yell, and then another, and her voice dissipates as her head hangs.

"Ru...pert?"

She tries this again, my name, but so softly, and I manage to shake myself free and string one single sentence together: "Yes, ah... Mier... Mier is... Mier..." Almost...

"Rupert!—Ruuuupert!—ho _ney_ , what _about_ Mier?"

And I have to remember, pained pants hardly all I hear above her voice. "Mier is... _Mier_..." Swallow. "An... _ancient_... is Mier..." And it is all I manage for another few seconds. "Years—Two thousand years he was, he is... _she_ is... she is not Mier... she is _n-nnnot_ Mier..."

I think then she begins to calm herself.

"Oh... oh, diga-dear, oh no..." Her face flashes in front of mine and she has lost color; her lips pursed and head down, shadow clenches upon the edges. "Possession, huh." In that moment the grip she has on my chin, as gentle as it is, is far more than enough for the voice deep inside of Pauleen to crawl up and through my head.

 _Oh dear indeed._

Right—Right... I try to remind myself before I lose my mind, that is _right_ , that is right, Pauleen already has one inside of her. And I swallow, blinking away tears, at that. And it is fine. And it has been fine. And she is alright and so it seems is the creature biding away in her body a-alongside her. So relax. Re-Relax. Everything is okay.

The lie leaves a nasty taste on my tongue.

"Yeah, well. What diga-did he—er, she?—whatever—they said something about how only _ancients_... can fight ancients, huh? Well." A wicked grin slides up her thin lips and a dark chuckle follows down below, a very deep and brooding and feminine but different tone. "Oni... is an ancient. So, uh, so"—as if suddenly conscious again, her fingers twitch and leap back from my chin—"right? That means... we-well that's something and that's friggin better than nothing!

Decisive fingers ball into fists in front of her. While clothed in such warm layers she almost appears gentle, if not for the jagged edges that only Pauleen would sport so pridefully. A big, daunting laugh—harsh enough to scare but mild enough to reassure—she pats me and sneers, "Aaaaalright! Rupy, you, uh, go take care of yourself or something; I'd better go find To—ohh, ohhhh..."

And then her wrist twists and a few choice knuckles crack.

"Yeah, they aren't hurting Todd." The sneer upon her thickens and bolsters and curls until it more resembles a nightmare than a face.

And so shall be it. With a final shove toward me, I blink away the last of my tears and watch as Pauleen waves me off and slams the door shut behind her. My hair brushes slightly back at the wind. For a moment I am left numb, unsure what is next, when I hear the roar pierce levels that must far transcend my own and I thrust back out into the blackened unknown. I think of Mier, I think of the golden eyes, the smashed composure, oh, the hope that pounds in my chest as I run and I run and I wonder if maybe there is anything I can do... anything at all...

The door slams a second time; my head jolts and I turn back to watch the light fade as it creaks shut and leaves a certain bluenette in its wake. A smile I wasn't expecting burns my face and I whisper, "Luk—Luk..." and he comes quickly, face flushed.

"Rupert... what in the world _was_ that?" He glances back up toward the sky and bites at his lip. "I—holy—oh _my_..." I turn too, and we watch as a jaw splits the sky in two for seconds that leaves such a shout afterward that my head lies splitting for some allot of lost time. Color, oh, bright, vibrantly flashing color and curdling scales the color of blood—of mud—of a squalling sea... Wincing, I direct sight in other places. My head... swims... gaze throbbing... and I only register next the clasp of a hand on my shoulder, and I look up to watch as Luk takes in the scene.

One large inhale: slow, slow release. Stiffening, his fingers dig into me slightly and his head turns skyward again. While I miss what words he is reluctant to say, his lips move frantically. A loss of pallor in his cheeks. He shakes his head again. "Ah, gosh... Rupy, what have we here?" Distantly, weakly, as his hand falls to his side.

I lift myself again. "She is... hostile," I mutter, stumbling my words, as if it was not obvious. "Yes, ah—she... she is..." As I work for what to say I turn again and stare at the dazzling creature who so attempts to overtake the sky about us. "W-Well, if nothing else, she brightens the darkness and aids our sight. A sore disadvantage she just might be regretful of soon enough."

We pause. Thick, bleary orbs peer from beneath folds of those bright scales, ones I carefully evade from searching into directly. The sting in my eye warns me; about the edges they tear and I wipe at them, turned enough from Luk for him not to see me. "Yeah, but... like..." He scoots closer; I steel myself not to step back. "I mean... like... _Rupert_..." A hand goes lolling out toward the horizon. "She's so... mad?"

"Mad..?" I turn back again with great heed, shadowing my gaze with one hand and not quite peering to that overly-lit soul. "Why is she mad?"

"Rupy!" There is a pout by my head. "Why would I know?!" Oh, that is... that is a good point. I stare, dumbfounded, toward one of those nearby tree copses, as Luk bumps against me and tries again. "C'mon, what _happened_ out here? _You_ tell _me_ why she's mad!" As so much as I skirt or pull back from the issue, it does blatantly sit in front of us, and there is only so much I can evade until it circles back again.

So I wince, drawing back. "Mier was never... Th-That is... Mier was..."

The eyes, never having been slow, earnestly hover by me. "Oh." Soft intake. That is all. "Well. That, uh, that explains it, huh." And he draws it out too, as if savoring the moment. "Wonder why an ancient was living in a cabin of all places..."

"Yes," I mumble, "for two thousand years... More than, for all she suggested."

I stray, then, and I nearly trip over my cast, having... forgotten all about it. A slight, sharp chill creeps into it from the middle and I note dryly that the tear which escaped my eye and down my cheek, the one that landed on Dina's forehead... froze there, at some point. A brusque shake of the head and I try to forget of it again, though I cannot help the shivering that tightly traps me beneath a big, powerful grip.

Luk has nothing new to add. "Well then... uh. Two thousand years." The nerves in his whisper betray his guilt.

"For all we know, he was but a shell of a person the entire time."

"Well." Luk grunts. "How about... we stop bringing it up then? I mean, _obviously_ it's getting to you. Maybe we should, uh, do something about it then? Oh—wait, there's not much we can do, huh. Gaaah... ancients are confusing..."

I blush. "Y-Yes. They are." I stay turned away from him. Unfortunately, he takes my shift into great interest and pushes toward me again... so when I turn back again he hisses softly and before I can move again his hand firmly captures my wrist and those searching hazel eyes probe into me. Luk stays close, his breath thick about me, mine surely thick about him, and he bites at his lip as he presses closer until he turns away suddenly, as if mimicking me.

"See?" My face heats as he turns back again. "Passive-aggressive. I'm telling you."

He nabs a smile out of the sight of just how flustered I must look in return to his... would it be insult? I want to say insult but another part of me knows, oh, he is playing, but he is also real too... and he means what he says, does he not? As wayward as some of it comes out he never outright lied to me. Luk.

Nervous, I glance back again. "Perhaps so."

A snort meets my rebuke. So much as I turn and pull back, he is not quite done with me. "Aaaaalright, per _haps_ so, _Ruuu_ py." He faces back toward Illit, her burning figure, and I manage to twist out of his slackened grasp. A new level of worry touches the edges of his figure. Quietly, he asks, "Hey... should we go check on Pauleen or something? Todd's... over there. And Camri... and, uh, Mistress too, right? And—And all of Dina's old—uh... you know. I mean, ancients are fickle jerks or whatever but... still..."

A stream of glittering, steamy yellow flame rips from the jaws of the glowing ancient, and I duck my head and nod. G-Goodness, I never realized until Todd let me go how badly I wanted to be away... aaah, passive-aggressive indeed... but I ignore this as of now. Luk and I go on, heads bowed against the brightness of the creature we near, and the closer we come the louder and thicker and hotter the air proves until I look down and watch the frozen tear begin to melt before my very own eyes, watery clear fluid streaming down a tow and dispersing into the warm— _dirty—_ earth below.

So have layers of snow gone. A glance upward and I—I forget—and I glance away from her, wincing, and I try not to look her way again. Repeated blinking slowly distills what light stained my eyesight.

And we go upon the edge of the crater, carefully leading toward the creature, far enough away to not be of any harm but close enough for the rolling waves of heat, and such heat, to suck moisture from the air around us. Gently I brush at the beating sweat at my cheeks, my forehead, and I glance upward again without thinking and oh—oh—oh is that where Pauleen... no... wait...

One glimpse alone renders her invisible. Careful enough watch and depict of the play of power in front and above our very heads begins to slowly knit a ragged piece of sight to behold. I bump against Luk as I do and then he sees it too: our pink-haired friend consumed by raging streams of scales and energy and what almost but is not quite a solidified form of an ancient. Oni, we soon learn, is a bird, a frighteningly gigantic bird whose wings rattle like thunder when they flap and whose beak depicts any decorated sword as but a pin.

Swallowing, I mumble, "Oh," and Luk laughs softly in defeat. When questioned, all he has to say is, "I have no idea how to feel about this."

Soon after, from a nearby snow pile quickly losing composition, Todd romps up toward us and grabs Luk from behind and remains in his shadow. "Uhhhh, you're okay? Good?" offers the bluenette. He is given no response. Todd breathes heavily.

Eventually he manages a few broken words: "Yeaaaah... haaaah... yeah, uh... yeah, that... totally..."

He drops his words when he looks up. "Aww man, when did Pauleenie sprout... sprout heckin' _wings_... hooof... never... saw that _coming_ man..." More deep, ragged breaths, and I think after that he decides against speaking. His head flops and then rests against the small of Luk's back; the latter refrains from any response outside of a blush... but my gaze lingers on the weak, pale boy behind him. With such pain in so little time, I only wonder what experience he found himself in before his partly-winged savior materialized—ah, no, think not of that... of my _halt_ and my inability to _move on_ when Todd was the one who was hurt in my stead...

Slowly I go to witness the spectacle a second time; bracing the sharp lights and the heat broiling from ethereal scales, Oni flits through focus again; thick, heavy wings slap at and through Illit's own transparent figure; and oh, there—but _there—_ does the flash of pain rip through her sleek, golden form. I lose my breath watching beads of sweat and blood glisten and mingle up across her face, slowly streaming like rivers down cheeks and plopping hotly into the snow below, partially burning, partially ghosts.

Another screech and a beat and a flap of heavyset wings and Oni only flies so far; hulking claws come down on the spindly figure and she lurches and slams into the snow, by me and not by me, her wings upon us and yet... wind. Comprehension hurts far more than the reality of it, if any reality is there at all. The sounds of it thunders in my veins and slams me to the earth; handfuls of mud scratch through my nails, scrubbing my palms, and when I stand again I stagger and nearly fall.

Luk pulls me closer. Todd remains where he is, albeit shaken by the departure. Oni, another gallant flap, and she soars again, back, back, almost a speck in the sky until she comes sailing and slams back into a baffled Illit's hot, smoldering face. A cry from the bird, a yell from the monster, and I swallow awkwardly and turn away again... how my face must look, oh... I try not to think of it.

Another powerful clash overhead and my head cries asunder; I duck and grasp it between filthy, dirty hands and hot winds clump about me... and I try to focus on breathing, on breathing again and not that wad of breath stuck to my throat. I wipe at wet eyes for what must be the umpteenth time in this sitting alone, and I try to raise my head again. The sight that meets me causes me to bump against the bluenette.

 _Ca—Camri?_

He sits patiently in front of me. Sleek, wet body curled and poised. Head raised in that way he calls regal. Not far behind him follows a spiny and far more regal entity who sits happily beside him. _Why, Rupert!_ he uses as some form of greeting. _How pleasing it is that you've returned! I'm afraid we have a bit of a problem on our side, yes? Oh, I never trusted that paltry pink-haired boy anyways! He can rot for all I ca—_

 _Camri_ , I murmur, pouring force into his name, and to my surprise he silences. _Why you speak so harshly of others I cannot begin to question, but you would serve higher purposes if you would so kindly perturb the monstrous golden ancient on top of the body of the pink-haired boy._ If nothing else, a distraction would be helpful.

 _Oh! I do like distractions!_ Cheerfully he cries, _Oh yes, distractions only let me_ add _to the splendor that is already upon my gorgeous figure!_ Turning, he calls to Mistress, _Come, let us trip up the tempo so well as we can of the ugly brutish gold one!_ With a giggle, my mapo queen follows, and somehow a piece of my heart hurts to watch her go, wise and gentle heart happily after the ridiculous krona.

Rounding a corner, Nyra watches for a moment, face turned, before flitting toward the ancient after her. _A-A distraction... nnnh, well that's better than just watching. I-I do hate ancients..._ She arcs past the snow and the melting earth about them all and launches herself through the fray of particles and lights and soars to the heavens and just so lands so that Illit only catches sight of the nycto ace before Oni headbutts into her, each passing through her solid figure.

Something about it is so absurd I am caught off-guard and a crude smile bites my lip. I shake my head, then, turning back from the scene as Mistress hops off to one side, reigning to somewhat over half the size of the violently-glowing Illit and shovels snow in such a way as to appeal her attention, shining white blobs catching light and smothering through her body. Camri happily spews more water when she attempts most any movement, cutting her focus off, causing her to growl thickly and swerve to miss him. For as transparent as she is, the brightness of water cannot be determined well enough so quickly as to assure herself whether or not she is truly safe.

If there is anything Camri finds skill in, it is his ability to garner attention toward himself...

They play a game of tag around the transparent ancients; Mistress and Camri closer to the earth but almost just as destructive as Nyra is a hindrance to focus. The longer they linger, the easier Illit grows to focus back upon her prey, but there is only so much she can keep out of her head.

Torn waits for the perfect moment to careen through her skull and shatter to the earth on top of Mier's cold, unmoving body. So shocked, Illit stumbles back paces and with her head tilted upward is caught awry when a beak meets her dazzling neck flesh. A thick, paw-like fist blunders out and smacks the bird away but not without a thin, albeit sharp, cut marking a very-near-mortal wound. So much as Nyra hovers in front of her face she can only keep up with so many of Illit's unpredictable swerves and ducks.

And she cannot keep Illit from looking down and perceiving the big blue dimetro atop her host body. A low growl, thick, viscous, swamps slowly spilling over his complexion; he stiffens as he searches for the source of the sound and finds it in hateful golden eyes.

All of a sudden the thick, gilded tail goes _solid_ and smacks _through_ her body, smacks in _to_ Torn, and sends his glittering body sailing through the air. He lands somewhere far off into the night, far enough that effervescent Torn is lost to cold, black stillness. So far as we know, he does not move. My heart pulls at me and I nearly, so nearly, go after until a hand slaps against mine and Luk tightens his grip on me and not unkindly does he shake his head and I know... It would be terribly foolish of me to run through that fray now.

The solid tail carefully pulls her shell of Mier into her translucent feet and lies him there and grows weaker and ghostly as it pushes back outward. No solid form can touch her now. Unfortunately for she, her immense thought in the corpse leaves her barren to the throttle of wings and beak and sharp, pointy toes that comes at her next.

I try to keep track of what vivosaurs remain; Todd has his three air ones out and nearby but not quite in the range of the brawling ancients; Aladee—and Reyna—are nowhere to be seen, but I am sure they did not desert without good reason, and certainly together as well; Trikko and his stout body turn about the edge of the circle and situate by us.

 _Trikko? Will you not assist?_

He gives a sordid laugh. _Assist in what? I'm sure the others have this well in their hand. Besides, as large as your Illit is—that's her name, isn't it?—she doesn't have that much space around her for everyone to constantly bombard each side._

 _Oh._ I glance back toward the receding darkness, shifting and turning with each move the unearthly gold ancient makes. _And Torn is—_

 _Winded._ Trikko snorts. _He'll be fine. Shock mostly is what did him in. Just you wait. Reyna's off trying to calm Aladee somewhere... ahh, Torn better not have landed on the poor guy..._ He comes off as joking, but there is a seed of worry in his thoughts.

We turn, then, back toward the throng, in search of what must come next, for this cannot hold as a standstill for much longer.

And it does not.

Illit, twitching her tail, having recalled its solid properties and thus the reopened possibilities alongside it, raising both paws: one flickers with a ghostly tinge, the other she flexes and hauntingly sharp claws pick up what fulsome light she shines. One bat of this and a bleeding, torn Nyra is flung hot to the earth and the paw heads without hesitance toward the very core of Oni's being, where her own host is held, her very conscious and very solid and very very real core that keeps her going who so happens to be—

I cover my lips with a hand. My fingers squeeze tightly and Luk winces, and then he sees it too. A gasp that must have been meant to be words spoils in his throat.

Todd stirs. So Todd sees... Todd stops looking. Immediately.

 _SsHHSHHCHURCHH—_

She relishes plucking her claws out of the unseeing girl.

And thus ends the reign of Oni, with no conscious host but a bloodied and battered Pauleen, and with nowhere else to go she begins to crumple into herself; what strength remains she surges into batting at and against a frighteningly scarlet-stricken face—which must be solid, then—which must be leering, then—toward Pauleen—to _end_ he—

Trikko is the only one who sees this, with Nyra obstructed and all other leads too shocked to step in. And thus he is the one who crumples his stout leg and jams it into the earth and sends ice and snow and frostbite up like a geyser into the bloodied maw.

The last thing thing I see is Luk motioning toward our bleeding friend as her means of flight continue to lose height, and his beginning to pull to the right, closer to the unsightly gashes and metallic red puddles oozing through her and a ghastly pale face and wide, unseeing green eyes—

When my head yanks violently to one side by some force other than my own and I catch as the pinkette beneath the legs of the golden ancient twitches and so nearly lids flutter, struggling on the cusp of something when it all... when it all recedes with the flicker of Illit and I—and I—

I lose whatever sight I had as I turn and swerve and turn again and start off in another direction entirely. How I manage it with my cast I cannot even think of as I lurch and go on and pull myself forward, forward, falling and getting back up more times than I even remember, just smudges of ice hitting my legs and my chest and my face and up again, the blackness around me, until I reach a metal handle hanging out in the night.

Slowly... turning. The door pops open and candlelight spills through a thin wedge in the opening. I pull myself through and I watch ice gather into beads of droplets and fall, hitting the earth in silent cries. My hands, crusted in ice, shake: a thick red color has tinged them. Feverishly I dart on through the hallways and corridors until I reach that cursed bed and I think I go past it once, oh, twice, losing my way enough to suggest I never knew this place once at all.

And I think of Mier and maybe I never did. And I think of the last time I saw him, it, her, _dead_ or _alive_ , and I can hardly think any longer, but there I lie, pathetically collapsed at the bed of someone hardly stirring to all the ruckus I must have made on my way here.

At the sound of frantic feet, scaled bodies begin to follow. I catch the yellow marple, soon tailed by a thin and sickly f-raptor, soon tailed by a certain pachy and a certain Pippy and then there they are.

And a smilo too, the striped body quickly tucking past a corner.

Carefully I sit upon the cushion by her body. The light flickers in her face and as she stirs, the soft peal of recognition toward the one who once lived inside of her shatters. Gaunt lines tapering her cheeks resume place; cold, dark eyes stare up at me; lips curved in the remembrance of her single expression quickly form a pout and put it in my way.

"I thought..." She coughs, quietly, a frantic light darting in her eyes. Even her voice does not quite resemble the one of the girl who lived there first. Louder. Weaker. Lower. "I-I thought..." Slowly she swallows, glancing away from me. "I thought I was... outside."

I blush. That... That is all?

"Um... my cousin—the, ah, the nice blonde girl—brought you here. You must have lost... consciousness partway through. You stirred once or twice, briefly—and you were fed. And mostly you have... slept."

Where the calm in my voice comes from I am unsure; my answer surprises me so much as her question did.

Her fingers pull together in front of her. Facing the wall, she squints. "Why'd you bring me here?" Quietly, fumbling for the words as she spits them, her face a great blank mass.

"Because there is"—someone inside of you, someone who is incredibly important... is what I almost tell her, before I stop myself. "There is, that is, ah... you are important. And... it would be wrong to let you lose your life if we can help you... s-stop that." I try to glimpse her, to see what hides in those heavy, violet eyes of hers, but she stays facing the wall, focused enough that I cannot even dent her attention even slightly near me.

She frowns, then, the curves about her lips thickening. "I _guess_." Silently I wince: then... what does she want to hear? G-Goodness... "You better not be _ly_ ing."

"Wh-Why would I?"

So much as it is not the full truth, I want to believe what I told her is truth enough in its own. I mean... it _would_ be detrimental not to help someone who is in dire need of it, someone you have the ability to help most especially.

Her lip curves downward further. Her face twitches with the strain of emotion. "I dunno. Cuz _everyone_ does it."

"Oh. Um." I wince. "M-My apologies, then."

Quiet. Then, "I don't think you're telling the whole truth though, not really."

"A-Ahhh!" O-Oh, _curses_... "Tha-That is—"

"But... you probably have a good reason." Then her eyes, while sly, while narrowed thickly, they slowly follow my figure. "You don't look like the kind of person who'd lie because they felt like it. You're... honest. Or, um. You try to be."

Glancing back at Zoazoa, I lose my breath when I catch those haunting, dark eyes.

"That's what _Dina_ thinks, at least. I hear her _voice_ inside of me _aaaallllll_ the time." The lips pucker. "But I'm too scared to silence it. To _kill_ it."

Oh.

And then I remember, suddenly, oh, I remember the situation I left everyone in and I remember that Pauleen was not the only one with an ancient ally on her side.

Quickly I whisper, "Zoazoa, I am sorry, you are still resting and you must not be feeling very well still, it has only been a few days—but, but _please_ , I must ask of you, three of my friends are in grave danger and there is an ancient outside attempting to take not only them but all of our lives, mine and yours and possibly Dinu's too, though I am unsure where she is right about now... I—Zoazoa, I know this is asking more than you were expecting, e-especially so soon... but...

I lower my head. "But they are... dying. And... And I have no one else to ask." I try to stifle the whimper in my throat as I whisper, "And I... I need your help." I try not to think about it. I try not to think about _killing_. Not anyone. Not anything.

Some part of me vainly remembers the authority I once held, and my ability to call and people would comply; Todd or Luk falling silent at a moment's notice, Pauleen stepping back from me. And for all I know it would work on Zoazoa too, and I do not have to be so... wretched to her, pathetic and pitiful and oh, _begging_ for assistance—

But I say nothing more. And I stay like that and I wait as she processes everything I have told her. Somewhere off in the horizon there are soft cries, and growls... and predatory snarls and I flinch at the telltale attack.

Oh, look at me... Wh-What have I become...

When her hand gently cups mine, and I look up, and that heavy gaze attempts to lift. "U-Um." She nervously bites at her lip. "Um, that is... O-Okay. But... if something bad happens, it's _your_ fault. Okay?" Her other hand raises and as she punctures _your_ her finger presses just above my heart and her hand, crumpling, presses against me there, and she must feel it beating there softly.

"Alright." I release a breath, looking away, back out the window. "I will do my... my best." Wh-Whatever that is.

As I pull up from the bed, and her fingers pull away from my chest, and I take her hand and tighten my grip upon it, and we pull out of the cabin, it almost feels like a moment I have repeated countless times before but with another almost the same but yet very, very different person.

And then I think of Mier and Pauleen and _Luk_ and _Todd_ and all of the potential harm and my pace quickens and quickens until she and I split across the black horizon until the light begins to show up toward the edges of our visions... and it almost feels as if something wondrous waits upon the other side.

A grim grin pulls back at my lip. I know otherwise. It softens with my grip on her hand. We near the monster ahead and my fingers slacken completely and I point her out, the Big Angry Ancient Who is Hurting People, and she darts off toward her and her height swoons and the creature I see before me so resembles her father I stop and stare for moments onward.

The same hulking bones and wings and rotted, zombie-like flesh. The same dark, dark eyes, the same black highlights and undertones... but with another almost the same but yet very, very, _very_ different person. How... dumbfounding.

I wrench my gaze away and search for my friends.

Just further beyond the haze of semi-darkness, there they lie: Luk, face having greatly paled, sits in front of a bloodied piece of—oh, that is Pauleen—and her head rests upon his legs and Todd sits near her face, his hand squeezing hers, his face just as pasty and weak. I hurry toward them and go to situate myself at the other side of Pauleen when Luk looks up and his hazel eyes carefully penetrate whatever it is my face reveals.

Before he mentions what I managed to commit again, I stop him and whisper, "Do you need more bandaging?"

Ah. I had not even thought of it at the time I was in the cabin—nor do I know where Mier keeps those supplies—but here they are, up and down the body of our Pauleen a patchwork mess, Todd's goyle a large, thorny hump behind them, and she allows them to use one of her spines to cut off parts of their sleeves to tie around her wounds and try to staunch the flow. Having torn the majority of his top layers—and the bottom of the dress Todd dons—I offer my own sweater.

Luk gently pulls his head away from mine. "No. I think we got the worst spots. And I already destroyed mine, so... like, we don't need to do more damage than we've already done."

Oh. "A-Are you cold, Luk?" though it is obvious in the struggle in his eyes after breaking contact with mine, in his balled up fists of hands and patchy red skin and the tears in his eyes that return with every cry of the wind... that yes, he is freezing.

"E-Eeh! You keep your layers on..! I'm the one who went and sacrificed one of mine, I-I'll be fine, we... we're not gonna be here much longer as it is." His eyes dive back toward himself again, and I realize, oh, he does not mean that—he means—he _means—_

Illit, now, I note, turning slowly, has been slowly sliding her host body forward with her tail in the gentlest way a humungous, thorny, scaled appendage can. And once she inches close enough... what is there to stop her from—"O-Oh... L-Luk, that is not true. We will be fine."

He throws this look at me which suggests I know much far less about he situation than he and everyone else with him. "Uh- _huh_. Well. Dinu might make it, I guess, if she doesn't search her out that much." He swallows, glancing back again.

"Luk, why do you keep—"

The hands in his lap twitch and clench together as if in strangling one other. "Sh-Shut up! Okay?! I'm _scared_! W-We're gonna _die_ now, and—"

"Luk, I—"

"N-No, stop! NO! AREN'T YOU SCARED?"

He drops his head after that. Shaking consumes what little functions his body operates. His hands he pulls over his head and there is a mess of tears and stained blood beneath them. Wincing, wheezing, he tries to start again. "Why... Ru-Rupert, why aren't you scared? And why did you come back this time? Y-You had a chance, if you were running, but I guess you also didn't since she's probably just come after you later but... I mean, if you're gonna run away again, you don't just... come back to something like this."

Risking a glance upward, he retreats back again, and with the ebbs and flows of his shaking I feel the soft murmurs of sobbing deep inside of him... and my heart aches. Luk... oh, but of course this hurts him. He must be thinking about his life, what little life he has lived, and all he sees are the same days in the same mansion and the _same boy_ over him and disrupting any clarity he once tried to hold onto.

I scoot closer to him through the snow. Todd, however silent, cannot seem to tear his eyes from the monstrosity ahead, so much as he tries to. Quietly he whispers, "Are we... really gonna die? Is that... is that now?"

"No, I—" Finally I reach the poor, lacking boy I knew all of my own pitiful life. "I was trying to tell you... I-I brought Zoazoa with me." I try at a breath and wince. My chest aches. "She will... she will..." but I am unsure what she will do, so I let the sentence hang and gently press a hand into my friend's own, and I unravel one of Luk's clenched palms. He lets me.

Others fog in and out upon the horizon. I think behind me Sunny and the others showed up.

They must see this mess. They must see all of this mess.

Swallowing, I denounce that it is alright for them to try and pretend they are not here for this. The only one who risks a motion is the seismo, sweet Pippy, who curls up by our side and stays there, his stormy violet eyes a miserable onslaught.

Silence, for a time. Pauleen, unconscious and pale—but breathing, I remind myself, oh, but breathing. Todd continually stands guard against whatever unstoppable force comes toppling our way. We wait, and we wait, as Luk regains his composure and subconsciously wipes at his cheeks and tries to ignore the fact that he broke down in front of all of us and stayed that way for some time.

"That... That can't be it... c-can it?" Big, hazel eyes dart my way. "Rupert, is that all it takes? You just ask her to show up and she... does? She wakes up and comes with you and now she's gonna take that stupid ancient by—"

I try to break through and cry and reassure him, _yes_ , Luk, _yes_ , it is just like that, but another voice overcomes whatever words fly to my lips. The yell of some ethereal monster who, as we turn our heads, casually loops through in a complete haze of a state and knocks Illit to the earth. An Illit who was already weakened from the attempts of Oni and an Illit who has a vessel to protect and these Illits but crumble to the power of the daughter of Zongazonga.

She realizes it too, and a soft, moaning howl pulls from her maw as she collapses.

It seems even the ancients feared him. Is that not what Nigel told us—all those months ago?

I am blinded for a moment by the memory. It feels... like innocence. But it also feels distant. I was quiet, and I was alone, and I was stilted and pompous and I was, oh, I was apathetic when I heard that old story, a fable about an ancient king who had so much power on his hands he did not know what to do with it... until he tried it on people.

And here she is. The daughter of such a man.

Zoazoa does not hesitate to stab holes upon holes upon holes through the flesh of her enemy. For a girl who has lived other decades—or at least decades—inside of the body of someone else, she has had hardly any action in her life up until this pinnacle. Wincing, turning back, I try not to think about how her marks almost come off as _giddy_ and then I try not to think of the punctures and cuts and scars and stabs and all of that blood any longer.

While my mind goes off into a frenzy of thoughts, Luk grabs my hand and points with his other, furiously, at the body left unprotected. The two shadowy monsters, with Zoazoa on top, have knocked themselves out of his stead... which leaves him open to most anything that can occur. I nod quickly and he lets go of me and I stream toward him—when I trip and I stop.

And I look to the left.

Where the _other_ body lies.

The body that also holds a weakened person, a person who may yet still be saved in her precious state.

Help me.

My heart hurts... how it hurts, for the girl I love... but I wrench my gaze away and continue upon the path I was already going. Be-Because I promised Zoazoa... and to break that promise...

and she is the only ancient left... to spite her would put all of our lives on the line, not just that of Dina's...

And so I land, then, by the side of the boy who painted the face on my cast, who made the cast, who fixed the bone, who saved me however many times, but he only helps people who he deems not a nuisance, who he can help without hurting himself. Who he helps if they are not a hindrance, if he thinks them _good_ , and I think about that and his little grin and infectious energy and the paint he casts upon every surface available to him and I look at that estranged, lost face and I think two thousand years and I...  
And I miss him.

Gently, I cup his cheek and I mimic as Luk had with Pauleen, resting his head over my lap where it does not freeze in the snow. His skin—not only cold but chilled, but icy to the touch, as if he was never alive in the first place two thousand years ago. And I can hardly believe it: _two thousand years ago_ , Mier was born. Most possibly more than that.

And I miss him. And before I think about it the tears in my eyes overflow and hit his frigid skin, _pith pith_ , and I try to quiet the voice inside of me that tries to hard to wrest free.

Tilting my head back, then, no, I pull it forward, just by his forehead, I whisper, "I miss you," hardly a rasp, hardly a scrap of my voice to it, wind in the air, but there are so many currents already he must have missed it... if he was there in the first place. Oh and, ah, help me, please... please stop hurting when I think about you... because I miss you... I miss you... and if you are not real then I am afraid of what such a world would look like, one empty of...

A soft, almost imperceptible twitch. The lids of the eyes flutter... and fight, and flutter again and slowly unhinge, if but slightly. Lips parted, the pupils crawl from one small destination to another, moving hardly until they reach my face.

The first emotion I witness him feeling on his own is confusion. His eyes pinch; the cheeks pull. He nervously runs his tongue over his lips and whispers words I quickly miss.

"A-Ah—" I mutter and press a hand against my mouth. Tears, frenzied now, blur my vision, drain my eyes. It hurts to be near him and yet it hurts not to.

Another attempt leaves him louder but not yet enough to be heard. Once more, then, and I faintly catch the outline of one: "Ruu...ert..?"

My head spins.

He knows who I am.

I-I suppose that is obvious and nice but I know Dina was not in full knowledge of herself when she was indulged with her ancient so I—so I just... He knows me.

The sounds of the mauling slip from my mind; I try to block Zoazoa out but of course he must hear it then. Just by us. And there the vicious wind picks up speed and whips across my wet, chapped face and his as well. And it hurts to stay out here... and I start to, shaking, pull into myself.

"Hey—Rupert"—as he struggles to lift himself and sit in front of me—"Rupert"—his hand in front of my face, and then pulling past as he gently takes me into an embrace—"Rupert... you saved me." And his grip around me tightens as my crying chokes me up and his eyes slowly wander and I watch his blurry, pink-hued figure and soft golden eyes take me in before turning and finding—after the ancients—after the snow—after Pauleen—a body not far away.

His breath comes out in one hard slam.

"Rupert. You didn't..." He winces. "You didn't choose someone over her... did..." And he picks up his gaze and watches as Zoazoa pulls away from the quickly-disintegrating body of the creature who held him captive for so many years. And he turns and watches, his heart quickening, just underneath where my head rests, and he watches the ancient crumple back into Dina and overtake her once more.

"Rupert." His voice is harsh. "Rupert, never once did I go out of my way for you and here you— _here_ you—" But he cannot go on.

What joy overtook him since then forsakes him now; his face crumples. "She's... She's living like I did. Isn't she." Pause. He winces. "Y-Yeah. Oh... Rupert, that's... _horrible._ Rupert, that means..."

"No—I... I..."

He waits for me.

"This means... M-Mier... this means..." My breaths become less and less as I strive for it, and as much as it hurts me and drags my heart deep, down inside of me... it raises me as well.

"It means we can save her too."

He cups my trembling chin... and then he smiles softly. What fight on his face has gone quiet, and all I find is a great reserve of kindness. "Yeah."

 _Camri_

It's a funny feeling. Doing something for someone else. I mean, first of all, there's the question of why even bother? They have nothing to do with you. There is no gain from assistance, not substantially so, right? And besides, if I'm already so well-off when it comes to me and myself, then again, there's that pondering of reason and what the purpose of any of this even amounts to.

Alright. Company. Does company amount to much of anything either? Once more, if one so lovely to myself as I already exist, what is the gain of another's presence? I feel rather satisfied, just on my own. As fun as it is to idle in the presence of the plebeians, to have them fawning over me... it's not necessary either, and it grows tiresome as with repetition.

So then why of course would I help him?

Mistress shifts somewhere to my left.  
Excuse my language, lady, but you're the most irksome of them all.

I just wish you'd _listen_ when I tell you to leave me be. Oh, _dearie_ , you act like I'm such an angel, and indeed can I be, and indeed do I enjoy the fawning, as ludicrous can it be, but I have no time just to myself with you constantly around, you moon-eyed mapo queen. She always responds so readily to others; makes you think she'd enjoy doing favors for them too.

What a ceaseless bore.

Think it'd be the same with him, too, huh. Same as everyone else. With such a light shining on me it makes no sense that I'd trifle with the plebeian lifestyle, yet here I am now. I don't know how much I flaunted at that ancient in the effort of a mere distraction, and not a very powerful one at that. I just know my body aches from so many motions in succession.

Honestly, I glare at that white-haired wonder of a boy and I still ponder it now. Why bother. I'm not really sure. He's... gosh, he's so emotional, look at the tears raking down both cheeks. It's almost creepy, how many cracks of pain trap him inside of himself. Not to mention the smile, weak at best.

A truly pathetic ensemble. Somewhere in my head yet again do I question it.

Mistress shifts by me. A part of me considers asking her politely to go somewhere else again; another feels pretty certain she won't. Oh... considers herself being _brave_ now does she? Augh. That's annoying.

Catching my scowl, she murmurs, _Dearie, what is wrong?_

 _Nnh._ She flinches at my voice. Like she didn't expect it or something. Though I guess it makes sense why she wouldn't. _Frivolous matters of no importance, truly. But a bother that won't go away._ People.

Poor thing pauses, like she then expects me to ask her how _she's_ doing, eyes all mystified and everything. So, on a whim, I decide why not humor her. _Well then how are you faring?_ No—wait—she didn't expect that either, that flinch is evident; just wishful thinking on her part that I would. And then almost—oh, almost—as if it were capable—I almost think I feel a twinge in my bosom. Of guilt.

But that can't be so: I am myself. Kronas are masterful vivosaurs of charming effect and my figure and my heart are only so solid as to prove this. And I am myself, on top of that. Not that I could forget.

 _Nnh! Um.. n-nothing much._ That's a lie if I've ever heard one before. Catching my snort, she turns back. _Just... happiness._

 _Happiness? And why is that?_ My body aches and hers cannot be in any better a sensation; she was just as vigorous if not more than me in the clowning for Rupert.

For a second there I mistake my feigned interest for actuality.

She must, then, too. _Ah! Why, dearie, it is because we succeeded!_

I snort. _In what, exactly?_

That's a blow. Her figure stiffens.

Compliments to my smarts, she doesn't admit the obvious. Good for Mistress, I guess. Instead, drawing her figure back some, she mumbles this like she's afraid to say it, like if she says the wrong thing she'll be _punished_ for it: _Then why not be joyous?_

And I decide that I guess I don't have a very strong answer for that. Not one she'd take, anyways; she is Mistress. There is little Mistress does not fitfully attempt to find some gorgeous light within. Like Rupert, for instance: and why did I help Rupert anyways? Bah. I don't know.

And then it hits me. And then maybe for a second I do present some sort of an interest in this conversation with this hapless girl.

Pff. Because why not.

 **Ahh, intense chapter! Haha...**

 **Oh gosh, story time, haha.**

 **For awhile I thought I was going to kill Mier, actually! So like... awhile ago, when I realized there was this space in the plot that needed a new character for certain things to work, I came up with a couple ideas, and the first one was this... messed up partially ancient girl who kind of acted like Mier in his moments of Illit-taking-over (can you recognize when those happened earlier on in the story now? Haha) but anyways she didn't last very long and... somehow, eventually Mier was born.**

 **For awhile I thought Mier wouldn't be real, just a shell of a person, and they never actually knew him and he'd been dead the entire time. But... as I was writing more of this story and more of Mier... I realized that I really liked Mier and that (this wasn't what influenced this chapter but) he shouldn't die.**

 **It's because he lives to here that Rupert realizes, oh my gosh, we can _save dina,_ and his whole maybe I'm watching over her thing might be truer than he thought originally.**

 **Ancients are messed up people but there you go**

 **It's funny, the ancient cast we have here: some of the ones that are only present to screw with Rupert are still in that olden-day-dinosaur kinda mindset, not really feeling I guess, but then there's ones like Illit where it's half and half and Zongazonga's just a mess I don't wanna get back into xD**

 **And then there's Thomas and Iggy, who are _for_ Dino and on his side and everything! And Zoazoa... is? Depends on how you look at it, haha.**

 **I like ancients xD alright that's my two cents, haha**

 **oh and, I should mention Camri too**

 **So if anyone out there remembers TSFF, Jkonna has these things too, where her vivosaurs would show interest in some part of the story and offer _their_ two cents. Of course, Rupert's been very distant with his so it's only to be expected we never figure it out until later (thoughIalsoforgotalittlebithaha), but it does make sense these things come later! I mean look at Camri xD So there you go, haha**


	25. Da: I Think

**Alright, back to adventure, can't leave Dina hanging forever**

 **Dina: It... It is lonely, being alone now...**

 **Trikko: kind of looks at her -Really, now.-**

 **Dina: o-oh, um- -face implodes with blush-**

 **Trikko: -Sorry, Dina. You said it in such a way that I couldn't seem to help myself.-**

 **Torn: -WELL FUCK YOU, YOU SHOULD'VE HELPED YOURSELF ANYWAYS-**

 **Trikko: winces -Stop yelling, would you? If anything we hear you less when you—**

 **Torn: -WHAT WAS THAT? I'M TOO BUSY TALKING ABOUT ALL OF THE AWFUL TRAITS YOU HAVE TO HEAR YOU.-**

 **Trikko: -...and I think I'll take my leave—**

 **Torn: -BUT WE CAN'T LEAVE DINA ALONE-**

 **Trikko: coughs -Torn, a little late for that.-**

 **Torn: -...fuck you.-**

 **I know that Torn and Trikko aren't even in this POV of the story anymore but I don't really care xD This is just the area I have fun around with for no reason on anyways so who said it had to be taken seriously to the plot**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 25: I Think

 _Dina_

When I reawaken, I find my palm mashed against my forehead and the nail of my thumb in particular cutting a thin, even line through one splash of scales. "N-Nnnf..." Slowly I blink and waver with my eyes, thinning and closed to thoroughly opened, in repetition until my head finally ebbs and I feel sure enough to push my fingers into the ashen earth and pull to my feet once more. My hair I find stuck to my head in places and I gently push it back, though there is not any light once more so I cannot even see any of it... and if there is no light, then no one else can see it either...

Suddenly nervous, I rub at my cheeks. The remaining particles are of the obstinate sort. Pouting, puffing my cheeks, I try again only to be met with unwavering resistance. Then I let my hands fall to my sides. A soft sigh releases what breath I held.

It feels... almost sticky. Itchy, noticeable, certainly, but somehow a part of the pieces reminds me of another sensation entirely and all across my lackluster body my scales crawl from the thought of it.

When I rest a thumb on my tongue and remove it to rub upon the opposite arm, I think I feel slight release, though really the ash is so small and I cannot even see it anyways so it is a little difficult to tell, but maybe, maybe some of it is—

Then the light returns. I jump in place. "U-Um!" Blushing, I squeak, "Wh-Who is there!" without moving. My body has frozen on me. Oh...

"Dina?" Slowly I begin to relax as I recognize the soft, lilting tone. With my weakening, and with the golden, glittering light collecting upon ashy scales, I sense the presence grow closer, as does the voice, vibrating warmly in my being. "What is wrong, Dina?"

My eyes draw to the ground. "It is... it is... um..." I shift, pulling closer to myself. The dust at my feet kicks up and spirals outward through lukewarm rays of golden light. I swallow, try again. "That—That is, I... Um, why was I on the ground?"

It sounds childish, the blocky phrasing, the weak tone, the stutter that follows my every last word like a reminder. "Why, because you were unconscious." Briefly. Quietly. A warm regard touches him and I nearly turn around.

"O-Oh... O-Of course. I... remember now." What little stressed parts of me that remain begin to release too. I release a short breath. "I remember. Y-Yes. And I... it was..." Why did I...

"You were tired." My gentle response is given to me. "Too much energy expunged all at once, and you had already drained so much of yourself earlier. With myself, with the cliff, with the creation of Todd and a scene that did not previously exist within your reserve of memory."

I nod again, slowly. "Oh. Um." My face flushes. "It feels a little weird, be-being told this in such a... f-factual manner. By someone with a—with a voice I... think I knew well once." So with that I turn, and I face the swatch of memory and being that I transformed into an almost-whole person again. But not completely... not really. His face only shifts so much in countenance—I only remember so much of his movements. And there is no clear memory of his eyes when... displeased. It is a strange emotion to be missing but the way the golden irises clear whenever I reference such an idea is unsettling, and it causes me to be forced back into a world where I am the only one truly present.

"Yes, it must be." And there is a hint of a smile upon soft, pink lips. "My apologies, Dina. I am only as whole as you made me to be... and with so many pieces missing it is to be understood that this is... unreal."

A sudden laugh seizes me. "Ye-Yes, exactly! He-Heh... yes..." Eyes tilting toward the dark lumps of soil, I try at a tiny nod. "Unreal makes me feel sad."

"Me too," he chimes, gently, but it hurts to wonder whether or not that is because unreal also makes my beloved sad or perhaps he merely echoes some of me. _Unreal_. I swallow, stiffening: when I look up the eyes are hollow again, because he cannot be displeased if he is missing the emotion. I shiver, blinking rapidly, and his expression fades back into a comfortable neutrality. There is a warmth, though, that remains when he gazes upon me.

I think that is real. I think... my beloved felt that way, when I saw him last. Yes?

Then I think _him_ unreal too. And when his head tilts toward a wayward glance I try to pretend I was not considering him an ethereal angel again because that is... that is embarrassing and... w-weird and... and unreal, very unreal, but it is all I have left sometimes and it is better to grasp than nothing.

There is another emotion I remember well, outside of the warmth he perceives. But that emotion makes me sad, and seeing it makes me scared for wherever my beloved is now, so I try my best not to disturb him enough to reawaken it. He must be... a soft person. Whenever he reaches out to me his hold is gentle, and so is his face, and his eyes, and his... lips, t-too. Oh, Dina...

His lips upturn and the eyes narrow, turning coy, when my thoughts begin to wander. I try to ignore that before my insides grow hot and it becomes impossible to glimpse his way without a heat buffeting me s-so I think I will glance back now, j-just for a moment, just so I calm down before he—before he—

The hand at my side is folded into his and with an abrupt jolt of a moment I forget what I was so worried about and my mind goes intensely blank.

"Dina... you are in pain."

O-Oh. "Yes... sometimes." I gently turn to him, and I smile somewhat, and I never learn if he believes me or not since he is not even real, not really. "Um... My family. I was... that was my last memory. Before I l-lost consciousness. Y-Yes?"

A softness overcomes his features. He rests his head against mine. "Yes." Gentle, he murmurs by my ear, "Do you remember them now?"

"U-Um, a little bit..." I swallow, and I start to lean into him, and with my free hand I wrap my arm around him. He is... warm. My... beloved. "My... brother. I saw him when he was very young." A pause. Something begins to dawn on—"Y-You are not my brother! Y-Yes?! I-I know people change wh-when they grow older and your are—you are not—"

A glance of both mild disturbance and humor traces soft, golden eyes. His lips part in thought. "Please... do not say that again. No. No, I would rather not be the infamous brother who lost himself on his way of looking out for you. If... I lost my sister, had I a sister, I-I do not know what I would do with myself. That would be..." He draws off, gaze weak.

"That would be hard," I mumble, a little more into his skin than the air in front of it. "That would be... very hard." And his grip, if but slightly, tightens around me.

"Yes. It would be."

And he leaves it at that. The utter tenderness torments my heart and I tighten my hand too, releasing his to hug him with full force and we are quiet, then, for a little while. Resting my head up by his neck, his skin soft, his hair soft, I think about him, the boy I call my beloved, and I think about what kind of a world we lived in together... and I wonder what it was like, the together. A kindness touches him, and... he—he is very clingy... but it is sweet, I think, he is very sweet...

Although I suppose if he was not then why would he be my beloved?

My stomach pinches.

I force my mind off of Torn and loud words and pushover repeated unending. B-Because at the very least, I... remember him fondly. B-But I guess I remembered a lot of things fondly so I... so maybe it does not matter what I remember how, j-just that most of it is probably inside of me somewhere, or inside of here, o-or something...

My beloved feels the quaking that creeps up my body. He senses my unease and he gently removes his hold upon me and replaces his arms to my shoulders and he looks into me, and then my tongue tastes bitter and there it is, the weak, soft, pained, powerless pressure that fills him, the anxiety, the weakness... the inability to do anything as I stay in this fuzzy, unreal state and I—

And I squeak and with my squeak I bite on my tongue and then I cry softly, covering my face, curling into myself. "S-S-Sorry..."

"Di-Dina..."

He is gentle again after that.

It makes me sad when I remember how powerless he must have felt in those last moments. I... I remember those, because that is how I came to be here, I remember those so... well. I think... I think we were both in pain, and the emotions tearing through my beloved were so livid they tore past any barriers and I can feel it sometimes, little pains in my chest, even now, especially now, when my mind begins to wander.

And sometimes I think there are pieces of him, of the real him, when I weaken like so.  
Almost like... he is there. Like he sees me. Like he sees the fear and the hurt I feel as I strive to... to _something_ in this blackened nexus. The violent thoughts in my head wander.

"Um... b-beloved..." Quiet, he turns back toward me. The warmth has returned to his soft, pale skin. The thudding in my heart lessens. "I was... I was thinking I would like to t-try and see him again. My brother." His—his name was—"D-Dino."

Oh. Of course he is not my beloved... that is not _his_ name. My face curls into a weak smile as I note this.

"As you wish." And he smiles, if but slightly.

"Okay, um... ummmm..." My face flushes as I squat to the earth and pick up handfuls of ash and realize my tail started wagging at some point betwixt all of this. "U-Um! Ah..." He does not laugh at me—though I catch the coy smile—as I try to cease it, fitfully, swinging in lopsided circles to catch a glimpse of it and grab a fist of it and m-make it stop, but then I remember my hands are already full so in defeat I toss the ash. It trembles behind me in pained beats, like a second heart. Dissolving, dissolving, and I return to thinking of my brother, and again falls the child to the earth, the tiny child with the spiny dark hair and the scales like midnight.

And orange, too. I did not notice that earlier... j-just how orange his face is. Was. Um. Is? I-I do not know, that is right. He grins up at me giddily, a casual stream of drool cruising down his chin, and the big drizzly gray eyes so dazzle my heart it feels so... so real, to see him... when I remember that he must be as old as I am right now.

"A-Ah." And that is why I questioned the state of my beloved. I simply do not know. "Wh-What do you think he looks like now?" My stomach pinches again, an angry cramp of hands upon hands inside of it. I try not to think of it but that does not stay true for long.

My beloved stirs. "What is wrong with his current age? It is possible you last saw him recently."

"Oh, um..." My face pinches. I try I try to ignore this pain... "I... I think he is my twin brother, my beloved. Which...Which means one of us is... lying." And then I give myself a swift look and I glance back at my beloved and he smiles gently. Nervously, my fingers knead at the monster in my stomach. I try not to look toward him.

"Dina... Heh, it is not your fault. Then... ah, that must be over a decade ago, the last you saw of him. You were a child when you last remember him, do you think?"

"Y-Yes..." That was a long time ago...

In a moment, the pain eases. A great panicked breath sucks out of me. My beloved casts a worried glance; I wipe at my cheeks and shake my head, no, it is okay, it is okay, I-I am fine. Now.

I point out at the blob of an entity who is I think my brother as some features begin to solidify but that is all, and I feel my tail sag along with the rest of my body... with such a small shift. "We were but... toddlers... when we were separated?" Oh... that is so very long ago...

Wordlessly, the boy beside me nods. His fingers tighten around mine. I lean toward him, breathing deeply, and he graciously allows me to, taking in my form with an ease suggesting he has done this many times before in a past I hardly have left. We are silent for some time when he suggests mildly, "It is possible Dino never grew taller than... ah... Todd?"

"Pff..." I giggle. "Why do you ask that?"

I feel his grip jolt upon mine. "That is... That is..." He winces. "Todd is... just somewhat shorter than me."

Oh— _Oh_. I burst into another little giggle. "M-Maybe!" I point a finger on my free hand forward and awkwardly conduct, kicking at the ashes, as my brother transforms into a floppy-haired creature of hair uncannily similar to mine and features that very well match my own.

A soft near-laugh escapes my beloved. "Dina, his chest is purple... and I believe he is a male. And his hair... when did it go to be autumn? That is your hair color, not his." He is soft as he points these out, and I feel myself drooping further into his side and I can hear my ragged breaths as I try to shift my warped ideas and transform Dino into an actual boy—and with scales, which I realize I had forgotten some of. How... funny. The spiny hair is returned, as well as the midnight scales, the gray chest, the cheeky orange face and accents... though his features continue to take after mine.

Just beneath the height of my beloved he strays to.

"Ah." A soft exhale. "Please let him stay there.

Another giggle echoes his words; my beloved glances back toward me and teasingly pokes my cheek. "I would feel... _safer_ , if he did not excel any past me."

"Eheheh... silly..."

Nuzzling against him, I try to mumble something accountable only for my speech to slur. One glance toward my composure and my beloved pulls me into a hug, gently lifting me. When I try to voice something against this he softly presses his lips to my forehead and murmurs, "I hardly understand what you say, Dina. Do let me enact this."

He takes my pout in stride, and not long after it melts into little bursts of giggles again. As I grow softer, I watch as his expression mirrors this, as silently as it does, and I grow distracted in the heat in his cheeks and the slight touch of a smile upon his lip as he gazes upon me and I gaze back upon him... and it feels so warm in my heart, being around him.

I-If this is not real then I am afraid I must refuse to live in reality any longer... What a... _wastrel_ reality that would be... In some angry mark, my stomach pinches again... but it eases before I can think much of it.

It is here that I feel a second presence stride to our side, and here that my head is cupped by a hand larger and—and different than that of the one who holds me already. A slow shade of disgruntle droops down the face of my beloved and his grip tightens about me, but that does not stop the perpetrator. Moments of a nervous silence pass and I manage to detect the strange, rough substance: scales.

"Yeah, so." I wince at his voice and it lowers quickly. "So... so, uh." I come to a blank... because what happens next? I only have in recollection—and but faintly at that—the voice of a young child who played the role of my brother. So finely as I sculpt him or carefully I craft him, he will of course still be off: it has been years.

And while this pieces fill some cracks it only reveals the gaping holes that remain ever further.

The hand flickers in and out of being, as does the body it is attached to. My head... aches, thinking of it.

I know I want to see him... but... but that is... and what if he is _dead_ anyways? What if _Dino_ is... unreal too? I may have created _him_ wrong and therefore he is... _not_ real and I... and I... and I...

Softly I sigh, and I shift so that I may wrap my arms around my beloved and look into him closely. "Do... Do you think, um, if you met my brother... that you would like him?"

Because I want to think they are both real. I... want to think they are both real. R-Right?

"Dina..." A little smile tugs at his lips. "I want to think so, though I am entirely unsure unless I met him how such a fateful meeting would go. It... worries me, slightly. Heh..." And there is a bashfulness about him, a softness that melts me with his bright, golden eyes. "I want to... be there for you. And... having a brother... then you... then _I_..."

I cannot help it—"Heehee! Why would I... oh, beloved..." The lost, forlorn stare in his features only causes me to laugh harder. "You are so... you are—Eheheheh..." which only, in turn, causes the forlorn stare to worsen. "No—no, no... d-do not feel baaad, my beloved... please...

Those soft, gentle eyes do not reach mine until he finds the courage to lift them again toward me. "I..." My throat grows thick. I lose my breath for a moment. "I—I miss you... my beloved."

There, wonder sparks, in tiny warm fragments. Used, and worn, and precious. The touches of his feelings, sacred little things, envelop me. "Dina..." But he loses his nerve again. Oh... somehow that is even more precious, the little fight in his eyes... " _Dina_... please, may I..." He presses his lips together; a curious discoloration of confusion drains him. I smile and I nod, and I let him go on and his face softens again. "Dina... I must ask... um, please, why do you miss me..? I..." Blush then overpowers his cheeks. "I just... need to hear it again. M-My apologies."

I want to see him... I really do...

"Hee..." Oh, you are so... cute. "D-Do not apologize! I like telling you..." And I think that makes him happy too. And that... makes my heart warm. I-I cannot help it. "Because... Because you listened to me. A-And... you are here now. I think. Maybe. Heh... And, um..." As my gaze flutters sidelong, his head tilts with mine, and my voice grows softer. "And you... you were not m-mad... when I forgot about you. Or... mad when I made mistakes and—and I am not...

I recall what Torn told me. "I am not... motivated... on my own. But you like... m-my presence. A-And I really... like yours." H-How could I not... "You are a very sweet person, my beloved..."

There he is soft, and I feel that maybe he is teasing me now. "Oh, Dina, you know I am not like that with most people. I... close myself off, almost completely."

"A-And I am an exception!"

He smiles gently. "Yes."

"And I like being an exception! It... makes me happy!

And there he has to look away, with the blush stinging his cheeks so strongly and his hands so tight and his gaze almost nervous, like I have said too much, or I have not said enough, or maybe it is not that at all but he thinks he is lacking... and he needs approval. Pouting, I curve my fingers beneath his chin and I pull toward him. "But it dooesssss... nnnnnn..."

Release slowly tucks the stress out of his mind, and he leans into my touch. "I know," just softly, and I tighten my other arm around him. He says no more, but he stays there, and I like that... and I love him. And I grow afraid, again, thinking about this place, about him, about _seeing_ him, as I remember that he is not really here, and for all I know he never was... but to believe it otherwise as he stands here and as we run over little moments that I cannot believe were pulled out of nothing but my diluted mind in this sickening, black madness, to follow that possibility down a hole that only assures I have lost my mind...

As the worry sinks into my chest, as my head falls from his side and I curl into myself, I situate myself back on the ashen floor beneath me, and I stay like that for some time. There is _no_ light, and there is _no_ life other than my own, and that alone is in tandem constantly, and I feel it sometimes swaying with the pitch and fall of bleary motions... and I wonder what it is like out there. But Torn is right, and it is never enough for me to try again.

W-Well... not without help. Not without help when I remember that... that maybe there is someone like the boy I call my beloved waiting for me out there. And I wonder what he is like, he who speaks in such a soft whisper at times with words he had yet to share with anybody else before. And I think about him, and I think of the distance he puts between himself and other people—and how lonely it must have been, his growing up—and how hard it must hurt him to be around others if at the same time all he wishes for is affection... and I feel sad. And I feel empty, and I want to hold him but then I remember he is not here.

And maybe that is a good thing. And maybe he is not real, either. And maybe _that_ is a good thing and I... and I...

An inkling of a memory surfaces... because something happened after the starship and the stone people and my mother and her death, yes? There were other things. I only recovered but a trove of the memories left sealed deep down inside of this black pit. One would think... oh, _I_ would think that it would be so exciting to pull away from the amnesiac that defined me for so long... to remember those I was with, to finally finish the puzzle that came from my very soul and find all of those missing pieces and put them back where they belong.

One would think. It seems all my mind has the patience for now is the boy I may have left behind, the possibility of a boy I may have left behind... and outside of him, the emptiness of this void that remains. If I say it aloud and try to think of it further I fear I will think myself stupid so I refrain, but I hold him in my heart. One day... I-I want to know your name. So I can say it... and feel it, and hear it in my voice, and my voice alone. U-Unless you do not like that...

Oh, I will get nowhere with these backward questions... I-I need to focus. I need to focus on what is ahead or I will never get to him again.

Or Torn. Or Trikko. Or any of the others. And I miss them too, the others.

And—And my brother. My heart pounds as I gasp with a trill: a brother. I never had a brother before... Oh, no, wait, that is not true; I did but I did not know I had one. I-I wonder what he is like? Is he... nice? Or... Or is he scary? Oh no, that would be disappointing to finally meet my brother only to learn that he never liked me back in the first place... But... But I have a dad too, a very real dad, who was alive... I think. B-But what if he does not like me?

If only my single notions of parenthood were not so soiled... Todd and his foster parents, and I believe my beloved—if I am correct—had a scary dad and a d-dead mom too... and—oh—in a flash there is Pauleen, neon pink hair, dark skin, big smile... and her parents are also dead.

I swallow at that.

Why are they all dead? O-Or scary? N-Not all parents are dead or scary... right?

I... miss Todd, too. And Pauleen. Oh...

A soft breath and I manage to coax myself to dig out small portions of ash. I stand and my tail quivers somewhere behind me... but I stand, and then I try to coax out of my mind the numb void inside of me, and with a breath I toss them... and oh, does my memory come.

Like a punch. It soars and it launches into me and I fall to the earth. Gently I raise my head and glimpse the fringe of light work upward and upward from the ground, roots of light sapping away at whatever power it is that lies in wait before them, and there the delicacies of human figure are formed. I stay on the earth, scrabbling at what little ground there is to support me; as if I am still but a child, the toddler-sized body of my brother squishes against me. A careful toddler hand takes mine and pulls me up by him, only when I look at my hand it is small and squishy like his.

My toddler hand. O-Oh. Yes, of... course. When I squeeze his he squeezes back.

The voice is soft, innocent, weak. "Yeah, so. So... ummmm... Now is the part where we—where we..." His wide eyes swivel to me, and in his great pools I see my own reflected. He twists the twine-like necklace of silver from the clasp about him and allows it to drop; watching me for a few seconds, waiting, and, disappointed, he gently unties the clasp around mine for me, and he places it on the tile ground by his. "Or else they will... know where we are."

My faint, small voice mimics his. It feels strange to speak without speaking. My throat... itches.

The eyes are sad. "So I hold your hand and none of us lets go. O-Okay? I press the teleport button and the camooflaige button and... and we go together. Okay?" For such a small child, his voice radiates a strength beneath the quivers and stutters and fears. "So then... then we find people who help you."

I think I ask him why I need help. He puffs his cheeks.

"R-Remember? Monster inside of you. Meanie monster." For such a squishy, volatile texture, his toddler face pinches into such a disgusted manner. My heart beats weakly. So... So then Zoazoa has been inside of me for much longer and I—and I recall the last bout of memories, and the stone bodies and the wisp of an ancient that passed into mine and stayed there... and stayed there... for thousands, maybe even millions of years.

Does Dino... know? D-Does that mean, then, a-all I have to do to find him is try to find someone who knows that tidbit about me without being told? Will that... Will that prove him to—

I suck in a breath and I wonder does that mean if... if he ever hears about me, will he think of this... and will he try to find me? Wh-What is he already has? What if... s-somewhere out there in the world that I want to imagine is real, he finds my beloved and they both... they both... oh, there is something important in that message but I am... afraid... afraid to think about it. For be it... unreal, and...

Before I can question the plotting of my brother, he squeezes my hand a final time and jabs a small array of buttons upon the metal necklaces lying in a heap below, his and then mine, and out of air a thick, glowing light spouts to envelop us... when I feel toddler fingers squeeze, release, slip, and disappear.

So that is... how it happened. I swallow, then, lying on my back, my eyes up in an endless black sky. He was worried about me. Because of Zoazoa. Because he... he knew there was something wrong after the millions of years of the stone—th-though _I_ think that the stone part alone is s-sketchy... M-Maybe the scaled people, the ones like us, knew what they were doing. Maybe it was safe... for a reason. I-I do not know. But either way, afterward, Dino knew something was wrong... what did he call it... teleport... camouflage—oh, oh... the human... the human form? The human form... It did not retreat until Zongazonga.

Maybe because of Zoazoa. Maybe because of... me, and Dino, and that... species that we are. Maybe there is some relation. But where does that put the creature that is currently in control of my body? Where does that put... me? Oh... I do not know... th-that is the thing, I do not know...

But there is the purpose in being here, is there not? Finding it. Sifting through this broken, dislodged, estranged past of mine to find... something. I am unsure. Something. Anything.

I curl up as I moan into my hands.

This is... _this is_...

This... this feeling in my throat, the balled up tension that squeezes me like a toy between fickle fingers... Oh... Something about my past is so... pitiful, so painful to glimpse through, so pressuring to glean from and... and it... and I... I cannot... oh, I cannot, for... for so much longer, I... I... do not want to do this. I... do not want to... to...

Cruel words... pass me by.

"Dina... why do you cry so? What is wrong?"

I start in place; my fingers snatch around my lips but so far as I try the soft cries stagger out anyways. So much as I struggle, I need moments of time before I can quiet myself enough to look the light-bearing form of the boy whose name has escaped from me in the eye so well as I can. "N-Nnnngh..." I swallow, wiping back slimy rows of tears. "Wh-Why are you back?" It comes out weak and broken. Gritting my teeth I try again; "Wh-Whhhhy are y—"

"You were lonely." Quietly. Softly. Spluttering, I turn away again, because I have nothing of any good to say in response to that. "And you were lonely... so you brought me back. Yes?"

"N-N-Nnn..." I untangle cold fingers. While he watches, I try to grow the task to as long as I can manage it until he sits in front of me and clasps them, and the chill melts off of me. I screw my lip aside and glance back again, a soft whine in my throat—and I try to stifle it but my throat aches too much to—and the eyes that behold me are gentle, too gentle to look into without a twinge of guilt.

"Dina... There is nothing wrong with feeling lonely."

"Nnn..." I pout, muttering, "I-I am not lonely!"

So he pauses, gently squeezing my hands. "Then please tell me what is the matter." A piece of sharp guilt stabs me when I hear the hurt in his tone.

I feel before I realize that I start to collapse upon myself again. I wipe at wet eyes, pulling my fingers from his grip—though not enough to loosen them entirely. And he stays, my beloved, he stays anyways. For some time my eyes toggle between the safety of the ground and the vulnerability of his eyes, his warm and gentle and soft yellow eyes, radiating a heat like the sun. He feels real, I decide, swallowing weakly, he feels so... real. So translucent as his body is, he feels so... so...

So I press my lips together. He must feel me shaking. "I am... scared." Heat courses through my cheeks. "I-I am... I am sorry... That sounds—"

"Oh... Dina, hush." And he is kind to me when I pull him closer and I hold him tight to me, and he returns my hug warmly. "Of course you are scared. It is only understandable. You are... in a scary situation."

Pausing, I need to find my courage before I can try to ask him. Swallow, breathe, breathe... I mumble, "You have been in scary situations too... m-my beloved..."

"Yes." He returns it warmly, if but quietly. "Yes... I have been. Dina, how... of all things, how do you remember that? It is... it is merely—"

"You m-mean very much to me!" My fingers twist around the soft fabric of his coat. I wince as a tear splatters at his shoulder and he shushes me for it. "Y-You do! And I..." I swallow. "And I miss you! I-I do miss you... my d-dear... my dear..! And I..." My voice lowers; I try to pretend it is not quaking so strongly. "And I am... s-scared... of s-so many things...

"I am scared that you are not real and... and that none of this is _real_ and... and I am scared of what comes next in a past I have not even remembered for over a centur—ah... no, that is... that is not..." My voice goes weak and quiet as I swallow again.

"A decade." His breath in my ear. "You mean a decade."

"Y-Yes... I mean a dec-decade..." And I nod clumsily at that. His fingers cup around the back of my head and gently stroke there, and I feel the stress wither again. "My beloved... please... you are not _f-fake_... are you?"

But should you be? Because if you are then I— _then I—_

One thing... at a time. I try to breathe deeply and powerfully, without so many raspy, wet gasps in between. My eyes I squint shut and I tighten my hold around him again, pulling him close to me, and he gently cups my cheek and tries at a little smile.

"Do you think I am?"

My cheeks flush. "I-I... I..." He falters as he witnesses the collapse of my voice and I pull back a hand from behind him, softly coughing into it. "I want to... th-think so... I..." I am scared to believe... I am scared to be wrong, to be... to be... hurt. And I know... you do not want that either, but... then _you_ are hurt in turn by the fight inside of me... as real or unreal as you are. As good or bad that... that is. Because if you are unreal...

"If... If you are not real..." I shake my head slowly; things blur when I try any harder. "I... If you are not real, then I am... I do not think _that_ world should... should be real." Nervous, I glance back up at him through pinched eyes. He has... relaxed, some. "I... I think you are. I really... think you are."

I wish... oh...

Gently his hands recover mine—even the one I coughed into. While I flinch at that, he is of no response. "Then... um... I am sorry, there is no solid evidence inside of here, but... please hold onto that belief. I... I am here, yes? I am here."

He sounds desperate too; there is weakness in his otherwise soft, soothing, low voice, and the tenderness that envelops me. I wish... I wish I did not have to be so afraid, and I wish I did not have to break so easily but... but he is here now... he is here now...

I squeeze his hands and I mumble, "I am... I am here too... I am here with you..." and when I look up there is but a sad whisper of a smile in his eyes and on his lips. But he is gentle, then. He is gentle to me.

"Dina... You must remember, then, that my memories are not kind either." As he whispers, I tug against him again, and he rests his head by mine... and he is so soft. "You must remember that my mother was killed in cold blood by my... father... and I was there and—and I was never very skilled at reaching out toward others, so much as I needed them, so much as I... needed you, once I found you." And it sounds real, and it feels real. "So I... I want you to know that I understand whatever comes next. I understand."

Sucking in a small breath, I nod. And he nods too.

"I-I love you," I mumble.

"Dina..." And he squeezes my hands again. "I love you."

And it is with him and a haggard breath that I lift up off the ground again. "P-Please stay by me when I... when I try this again..." Because I... I need to... need to...

Because... I...

He offers me a little grin. "I will." As I begin to turn back toward the blackened horizon he gently tightens his grip on me, and I turn back. "Dina... if I may ask... Why are you so afraid of my not being real? Have... you even seen anything to prove that I would not be? That... That anything or anyone you have learned of may not be? Why are you so afraid?"

Ah.

"I-I am... because..." Because... Because... um... "Oh! Be-Because earlier I saw a false memory of Todd and... i-it so easily came to play in my head, and... and..." And I cannot come up with much else in this area... oh, what is wrong with me...

Rupert is quiet when he asks me, "But did you not realize this memory was false?" My cheeks pink. "Dina—please, I am not trying to ruffle you." Breathing weakly, I try at a nod. "My apologies if I have, but... if this is your only reason, then..." And he pauses. Soft, golden eyes trace over me, and he is quiet as he does this. "Then there is no reason for you to be so afraid of an unreality you seem perfectly capable of distinguishing on your own." He gently tilts his head to one side. "Like... Trikko, yes?"

And I blush again. "I—that... that is... I..." But I soon find I have no words of use.

Why am I afraid? It... m-makes sense I would be afraid of unreality... had I more a reason to, but... but to latch onto this theory of all things and have hardly a reason for it... H-Heh, Trikko would be ashamed... a _real_ Trikko, a Trikko that I already know is real and was real when I remember his being here. Oh... he would be so, so ashamed of me... He is the one who always told me unless there is a reason, then do not... be so... nnnnnf...

"Dina..." His voice directs my gaze back up to his. "Perhaps there is something else you are afraid of? Something you... hid from yourself. That would explain why, yes?" And I nod again, slowly, and I try to remind myself that he has been nothing but kind to me since he reappeared and I... and I...

"N-Nnnnn... I raised my voice against you again... I-I am sorry, my beloved..." I wince. "A-And I am sorry I do not know your name still... out of everything that I do know..."

Gentle again. "Do not worry, Dina." I bite at my lip. "But... if you do have an idea at what else lies in your heart that you are so afraid of... please let me know. I want to be here for—"

"O-Oh! Like... Like..." I blush. "S-Sorry!" But he merely nods me on. I blush again. "I... keep avoiding my memories. Maybe I am... scared of..." what I do know. What I might know. What _is_ real. But... Wh-Why would I be scared of that... That is _weird_...

Nervous again, I glance back at the ground and kick at it slightly. When my toe casually passes through his boot, I-I try to pretend it did not and continue drawing little malformed squiggles into ashes I can hardly see, what with this lackluster light... though a lackluster light is preferred to no light at all. Pouting, I bend down and release one of his hands to scoop up some of the ashes, and somewhere inside of me my heart trembles at the sudden sense of vertigo that I know will pitch me over when I throw it.

And I remember not throwing it. Not wanting to throw it. Avoiding possibilities, feeling... miserable... and I remember again what Torn told me not so long ago, that I am never motivated to do anything and I... and I let the ashes harmlessly fall to their place on the earth again, my head woozy.

"It is your fault," I mumble, pressing against him, slowly balancing myself in the strength of someone else because I know, oh I know if I let go I will tumble all over again. And he waits as I find the words to elaborate, as I puff my cheeks and I go on to say, "I-If you were not here, I would have no problem with waiting for my d-death here. I would have _no problem_ with _sitting here_ and waiting here for Zoazoa to finally _kill me_ , I would have _absolutely no problem with—_ "

In a heartbeat his fingers snatch over my lips. "Dina. Please. Stop." His fingers shifts to his palm, and it stays there against my moist, parted lips as he shakes his head from the desperate powerlessness left inside of there. "Do not say that. I do not want you to say it. I... do not want to hear it."

Slowly he moves his pale hand from my face and I duck my head again. "I... s-sorry." But is it the truth, is it not? "I... had no qualms when the Huricans... owned me. I-I did not... care what they did to me and I did not care if I stayed there all my... all my life." Motivation. "And Torn knows and Trikko knows and Nyra knows and so do Reyna and Aladee, they all knew I would not fight this, but they also knew that if I did not, then no one could help me fight it... and that was it.

I glance away. "Um... but _you_..." My fingers I places on his chest. I cannot look at him directly. "You... make me want to live, but... but I never wanted that before... I-I never... I never..." And it is there I have to stop talking, for the weak, rasping breaths that spill out of me do not come back with enough air to supply me. My stained cheeks, still slightly crusted over in dried tears, my frantic heart, beating without much a care how rapidly it goes.

For if _you_ are unreal... then I have no motivation, no reason to try.

Pff... how p-pathetic of me.

Oh, my aching spirit. "I miss you. I... am lonely without you." My foggy thoughts. "I am... lonely... a-and I do not want to be lonely... that is the thing, I... I want to be around you..." Oh, loneliness...

And he knew the entire time, whether he knew it or not, huh...

Quiet, I mumble, "You make me... actually care about... wh-what happens to me. F-For once. Because you... care what I think... you care how I feel—you are not like Todd or Torn, who tell me to turn around and... fight it. You do not tell me to feel h-how I feel. You let me do that. Because... nobody ever d-did that for you either..."

"Dina..." Something about his tenderness is... deeper, warmer, somehow stronger than it was before. He holds me close to him and there is a... there is this glowing, ethereal warmth in his gaze that I cannot quite describe... "Yes, that... would be part of it, I presume, but... Heh. Is there anyone else in this world who finds such joy in little things like you do? Is there anyone else who so... shamelessly lets the world know how she feels at all times? I... admire that. People like you because you are so... honest, and you put them before you—which—which I am not saying is a _good_ thing but it is an honest trait of yours.

There his smile grows teasing. "Though maybe you should do it less."

"Heheh..." I smile, pressing my head against him. "Maybe a little less..."

"You will not, though, will you? For you are Dina."

A hot blush burns through my body. "M-Maybe I will!" Then I pause. "No... probably not. You are always right."

"Heh... No, not always. I used to be so stubborn and... I always distanced myself—I mean... I still do, mostly. I never would have... been able to finally... say something like that were it not for you."

"Nnn! You are making me blush very much over here!"

Not that he stops. Not that I want him to. At some point his hand wound about my chin, and he pulls me close to him then, and tilting his head ever so slightly, his white hair stroking the edges of his face, his other hand pressed about my back, eyes beginning to narrow shut, he takes me into him and kisses me... and we stay that way for I am not even sure how long... my fingers clasped about him and his body against mine, so... soft, and warm and... and... safe. Safe... with him.

When he pulls back, his breaths are raspy and rather audible, like his beating heart by my head. "Alright... Dina, I think you need to see your memories."

"See," I mumble, "you always are right..."

Raising a hand, he gently pats my head. "I am not, Dina, and we both know this, but it flatters me that you think so despite it."

"Nnnnng! Nooooo... that was when you... when you were _distant_ and... and stuff... And you are not distant anymooore!"

He smiles and presses his lips to my forehead. "Silly Dina..." but he does not refute it this time. _Good_. And with that, his fingers curl around one of my hands, and I go to the ground to unearth another handful of ashes. And I pause there. Blushing, I turn back to him.

"I am sorry I took so long to—"

"Dina." I splutter. "No apologies." And he smiles so sweetly I nearly push him or... or _something_ , it is too much for me... So I look away and I think about... and I think about... and I...

And I lose focus again. "My beloved? D-Do you think _Dino_ ever did that too?"

"Did what, my dear? Heh. You must elaborate."

"O-Oh, yeah! Um... Do you think Dino ever convinced himself about a truth that was not real? L-Like I did?" I pause, and then I gasp softly. "D-Do you think he forgot about me? I-Is that why we never heard of him before? Did he... forget me?"

And he is quiet there, my beloved. And he is gentle when he murmurs, "It is likely... Dina." But he is soft when he says it and I am soft when I hear it and it is okay, it is okay. So then I clump my fist of ash and I think about what happens next, after I lost my brother and the glowy light took me, and I finally hurtle it through the air.

Clumps of forestry and little worn dirt paths crawl about the ground below us. Trees sail high in the sky, taller than Nyra, most of them. A moist, sticky air presses to my scales, and my hair is... matted, and tangled, and when I pull a scaly hand in front of me it is—oh, right—it is skin again, or at least it looks like skin again, and there are little scars ringing around most edges, like I have grabbed too many things that I should not have grabbed.

A voice peeks through the foliage; the sun, dipped in the blue sky above, shines brightly and beats down on my tiny body. "Hellooo? Someone there? Purdy sure I hear—Oh!" And there the male steps in, and the first thing I note is how much taller he is than a toddler. Orange curly hair, a hat stuffing most of the curls into it, a large black overcoat and these strange, brown boots taller than myself with layers of fringe upon them.

The accent hits me like a stone. "Hrrrm... Someone lost their kid? Oooi!" He turns back, yelling through the trees. "Ooiiiiii! Anyone out theeeeeeree? Left yer daughter, ya did! Hellooooooooooooooo!" And, of course, there is no response, because he does not know this, but I do, that my family is very, very far away from this remote location.

"Well. I guess... _I_ could take care of ya? Though... man, who loses their kid on this sorta place? It's deserted." The man puffs out his pinkish tan cheeks and scowls. "Ahhh, whatever. I'm sure it ain't that hard, right? 'sides, I have better things t'do than tote y'all the way back to the orphanage." Oh. His reasoning is not very sound, but I think I like him. "Name's Joe. You, er... guess you might be too young to understand words. Uhhh... Name?" And he points at me, a great incredulous sense of uncomfortable awkwardness filling his face. "You? Er... name?"

And I guess my younger self understood the word "name", if nothing else. Or "you". I do not know. Because I hear the soft, raspy voice whisper, "Dina," and there it is, and here I am.

So that is how Joe Wildwest knew me. I remember meeting him—then Don Boneyard—er, as he called himself—and I remember him recognizing me, and hoping I could do something to help him out of his situation... and the fear he felt when he learned that I did not remember him.

I recall the penthouse he lived in, a large, spacious area with a tall floor on a small island in the middle of the Caliosteo three, that I learn he had built partially on his own. I recall the scattered children toys lying on the floorboards, on the shelves, as if a child was disrupted mid-play. And there are not many of them, but the little memories dot the man and me and... growing up in such a strange place. It was only for some few years.

At least for a little while. The little scene plays out and next comes Zongazonga, and I know next comes Zongazonga, and possession, and the possession of Joe, and maybe that is why Zoazoa took so long to overpower me, because of Zongazonga appearing into her life a second time.

But there is not some grand moment where lightning zaps and clouds part and the misty soul of a long-dead ancient king fills through all holes he can to enter the man who took care of me for the majority of my young childhood.

It does not happen so obviously.

Joe returns to his penthouse some day, and there I am with little vivosaur dolls—a tricera, I note stupidly, is among them—but not yet Trikko, not for another decade or so—and he takes my hand and he steps back as if pricked. And dark, dark eyes glimpse at me, and they must have seen her, and she must have seen him too, from wherever she was inside of me.

I was too young. I did not understand.

He rides a very unrelenting ptera, pulling me on with him, attempting to go back to Jungle Labyrinth maybe, where Zongazonga first came, I am unsure, but wherever he means to go the ptera that so loved Joe Wildwest does not love Zongazonga, and she crashes him into the ground at the first island that sails by. I want to say Mith liked me, the sweet banana-yellow ptera, but even if she does or does not at this time Zongazonga is a very powerful sorcerer and it is no big feat for him to bend her to his will afterward.

"Hmm." The dark, corded voice returns as he examines the cliff crashed upon. _Cliff_. All I have on me is the vivosaur Joe gave to me in his medal in my sweaty child palm and a jumpsuit he bought for me. Torn is apprehensive, but he does not know any bad words to scream at the top of his lungs. Not yet, anyways.

I think about the Huricans and I wince. Not _yet._ Oh, Torn...

"It appears empty enough here." Coughing, clearing his throat, Zongazonga levels his gaze with my tiny one. "I can kill you off in this area, I'm sure."

Whatever happens next I do not quite remember. Not... very well. A great throbbing, slamming pain ratchets into my skull and I think blood drips into my eyes and I feel pretty sure that it is here, right here, that I forget everything, and I think it is Zoazoa who has me flee or maybe a terrified Torn, but either way it happens and I do not die, not there, and Zongazonga does not see the daughter that he thought he saw in me. Because I forgot about her... so she was technically not there anymore. Not on the surface.

Oh.

Oh, so... that is how it happened. That is how it all happened.

That is how I lost the man who was happy to raise me. That is how I lost my family, and my brother, and that is how I came to the Huricans and how I lost all memory of any of this even occurring.

Slowly I sit down on the black ashes, and I decide that I am too speechless to think much of anything right now.

My beloved sits beside me.

It is the first thing I think of, and out of desperation I latch onto a small handful of ashes and I ask for his name and I throw it. And nothing happens.

All of this and nothing happens. Not even... a whisper.

He stays anyways. We say nothing, nothing at all, but he stays anyways right by me and I eventually lean over and press my head into his shoulder and his arm drapes around my back and I tighten my own arms around him and we stay like that.

Eventually I whisper, "Thank you," just softly, weakly, and I say nothing more.

Nor does he. That is fine.

We stay like that for some time.

 **Intense chapter! Haha, did anyone else notice that Dina pulled a Dino? xD I liked the thought behind that, that maybe it's something small she's lying to herself about but Dino did that about his entire family so long ago and only just realized it and... I dunno xD**

 **Heheh, it's... something else. But there you have it, Dina's past fully remembered!**


	26. Do: Escape Means No Return

**Haha, sometimes I wonder for prolonged amounts of time needlessly about what it's like to read a story with four very diverse POVs that switch every chapter or two (but stay mostly consistent in certain areas... and the chapters are huge too) and I wonder... it's not confusing or dizzying or anything like that, is it..? I wouldn't know, since I've never read a book that does it like I do xD The closest thing I read was _Matched_ , but _Matched_ 's characters all have very similar and fast-paced POVs so that doesn't really count to me...**

 **Well anyways, here it is again! Haha, I always seem to worry this when I switch to Dino xD Because... I dunno, he's so spontaneous and there's just this thing about him that really separates him from Rupert and Dina other than the plot... He's just Dino like that?  
**

 **Dino: well anyways super din-din to the rescue**

 **Jkonna: you're not very super**

 **Dino: ouch**

 **Jkonna: okay maybe slightly**

 **Dino: tiny super din-din**

 **Jkonna: teeny tiny**

 **Dino: jkkie sidekick**

 **Jkonna: and lonie too**

 **Dino: pfbfbbbb oh no**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 26: Escape Means No Return

 _Dino_

"Huh." I blatantly observe our nice and grand surroundings, full of lush jungle and lacking in water, or at least the kind that sucks at the land next to it ominously. It's so vast here I almost mistake it for the jumbled up batch of sand and dune and dirt that makes Vivosaur Island, but it's smoother here, and the only thing resembling a jungle is Knotwood Forest... and I'm pretty sure this isn't Knotwood Forest.

First off: no trees, thick and spiny pines with their armor-like crests of needle... things. No, none of that, these ones have floppy hat tops and rows of less leaves to decorate their slick wooden surfaces. Oh, and that's another thing: the whole texture of this place is... wet. Like, unbearably wet. Like waking-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-with-water-all-over wet, the disgusting wet that no one wants a piece of.

I don't know whether I'm pumped or annoyed, because the faces Raptin makes whenever he steps into a juicy turd-looking splotch of mud on the ground almost completely flips over my own feelings toward the situation I'm also stuck in.

There's something about his sharp, angular, stern expression twisting into a partially nervous, partially terrified, mostly flabbergasted mess that amuses me. Raptin's just the best to gawk at in awkward situations. He doesn't know it though; I think that makes it a little more fun to look into.

Poor Rapty. He's not having the time of his life in the jungle.

I'd probably enjoy this a little more was it not for the third companion. A shout: "Unnnghh! Dinooooo, you suck at this!" and of course the ugly attitude that comes with it.

"Buuuuh!" I stick my tongue out at the foliage. Not that she can see it. "Jkonnaaaaa, you're the one who said you wanted to be carrieeeeed! If you don't wanna deal with it, get on Raptin or something!" I pause. "Oh waaait! You already tried that and he fell face-first into a big old plop of mystery mud! Huh, I guess you're stuck with me then! Uhhhh... take that!" With that, I slip on a bit of vine skittering about on the forest floor. Fiery hair obscures a great deal of my vision until all that remains is slices of blurry green; then I upright myself and the world returns as it was before.

My best friend shifts on my back. Her legs tighten where they wrap around my waist; one hand removes itself from where it squeezes my neck to flip back some of those ridiculously long strands; the dark skin and creamy tunic rubs against my sweaty scales weird; she eventually settles.

"Does anyone remember where we are," softly mutters a disdainful Raptin. His golden eyes refuse to dart back from his grimy toes, the sapphire scales now embedded in fun brown spots that don't help his appearance. Why he won't look away I get, since he's so sullen about this whole place, but now he trips often, but, I mean, he put that on himself, so he can suffer if he really wants to.

From ahead, a faintly-blue creature shadowed in green snorts. _Raptin. You know it's not happening._ Droplet tosses her snout to go and ask me, _Why doesn't he listen? It's... annoying. And you know how I get when I'm annoyed, Dino._

 _Huuuuf!_ A little squeak pops out of my throat. _Yeaaaaahaahaa... but he's stubborn! Like... you! S-Stop acting like you're gonna take this out on meee, would you? You're making_ me _annoyed! Er. Well. Not really. M-More like nervous but... but whatever, I had a point._

 _W-Would the both of you cease in speaking as if I do not exist?_ Raptin mumbles. His head lowers, and the shadows cut through his skin like a knife.

I wince. _Sorry_. Droplet scowls and asks me to stop doing that, but when I ask her what she shoves me off and won't respond.

With that, Jkonna takes a moment to violently thrust herself higher in order to stab her shoulders down toward the soft spot between mine and cry, "Yeaaaaaah, you friggin weirdo! Raaaptin, we diga-don't know where we are! We haven't since, like, Shell! And the storm!" Her elbows really hit me there and I try not to wince so loudly but she's strong, like, oh my gosh. "Y'know! The storm Dino thought we could outrun!"

"Gaaaaah, Jkkie, we've been over this!" I squeak in an embarrassingly weak voice.

"It still happened!" A merciful mirth chills out in her tone, though she's not slackening on Raptin. "C'mon, we'll figure it out! This place is soooo big, digadig, I'm sure people live around here, uh, somewhere! And if they diga-don't, well, we'll just keep going and eventually I'm sure we'll find diga-Dina. I'm sure it's fine."

Raptin snorts. "Sure you are fine." Quietly.

He has a strange way of exerting his anger.

There's this really loud bump sound as a certain clumsy ourano trips over her own feet, not to mention the rocks thrown in there. _U-Umm, i-is everything okay up there? You got all quiet all of a sudden..._ Oh, Harei. She's probably the worst vivosaur to pick when it comes to putting them to our back, y'know, for safety—Raptin came up with that—Jkonna and I never thought of it before—cuz we're idiots, that's why—but she has a good group of them too, and most of Jkonna's, except for when they wander, so I think they'll be fine.

 _Should I help with that?_

This low, awkward grin trembles up my lip. _Lone, please don't suggest what I think you're suggesting. I really don't need that right now. I reaaaally don't need that._ She's just... she's just so loud.

 _Hrrr! Harei is riiiiight, thouuuuughhhh!_ she reminds me in her high-pitched trill, like I need reminding. _Raaaptyyyyyyy! Stop being an angst loooaaaadd! Nobody liiiiikes thaaaaat!_ She coughs there. _Especially... eeeverryyyoooo—_

 _L-Lone, that is not necessary!_ A bright red blush dashes along his cheeks and the thread of conversation is dropped freakishly soon after. With a cough, Raptin rests a finger along the heat pulsating through his face. He releases a slow, long breath. "I-I will be fine. Just... temperamental." A certain shift cuts through his countenance, layering evident distress in heavy lines. If he's trying to be discreet, he's absolutely terrible at it. "Besides. There was no turning back once we left the island."

That last part he utters in a grunt that dares anyone around to dissuade it.

And, well. Of course someone does. _Would you relax? This isn't soooo dramatic!_ And Droplet, of course, is the one to dissuade it. Oh, kronas. Oh, loudmouthed creatures lacking a filter. _We're just in a... wet forest! It's not even that different from Knotwood... and I thought you_ liked _Dina!_

Raptin doesn't have much to say to that. He hisses, but that's really it, and he might've just hissed because he tripped over something again. "Dino, do keep your rather voracious monster in check." My cheeks heat. Oh no.

"G-Guuuyys..." Biting at my lip, I try not to fumble at my words too badly. "Let's not get all... uhhh, _temperamental_ , sh-sh-shall we—eEEP!" I manage to nip my tongue and then I taste blood and that just completely ruined any of my chances at being taken seriously, though I guess I'm never taken seriously as it is so that wasn't even likely in the first place, so maybe I should just chill.

Pff. I wish. There's not tears in my eyes. There are no tears.

And it looks like I'm pretending that didn't happen.

A grunt, and Droplet mutters, _I'd take you on, but this isn't the rightly place to do it. Besides, we have someone actually important to look for._ No, she never listens to me either. _And I don't mean Dina! Shut up about that girl I don't even know—I mean_ Pippy _! H-He didn't go that far, did he..._

 _Nnnnnf... Where would he go, anyways?_ Harei is the first to take any chance to worry.

 _Oh, gosh, would the lot of you stop before it starts up again?_ And, well, Foster's the last to.

Droplet's, of course, the last to feel that way about our missing seismo. _Sh-Shut up! You'd feel the same way if it was, like, Bliss or something, I don't know! Or Jkonna! Ugh! You get so self-righteous, but you're just as emotional as anyone else if it's about the right stupid person!_ Oof. She's getting nasty. That already somewhat-wicked accent of a voice she has takes this unhealthy, rugged edge, and she turns to glare back at the mob of vivosaurs behind us.

 _I am not going over there, and you need to keep moving if you want to find your ridiculous seismo a second time... you know, so he can get lost again._

That wasn't the right thing to say, Foster.

 _WHAT DID YOU JUST? DID HE? HE DID NOT! HHHHHHHHHGG—LONE, JUMP HIM, RIGHT NOW._ And, I mean, Lone's gonna jump in a moment to do anything out of place, kicking Foster included. It's not like vivosaurs come off as incredibly ferocious around each other or anything—only as much as Jkonna does to me... though sometimes she's downright wicked, so what can I say—and Lone's only as scary as a little pebble you just just tripped over and landed in a meadow of flowers, but that beak still bites.

It takes a few tries from a few separate vivosaurs—a terrified Harei included—to remove their jaded nasaur from the futabi's finned face. Foster has no comment to make after his little scare, though I think he slows down some to let the majority of the others pass. Of course, I'm not even looking at them, since that mob of scales is behind me, but it... feels like something Foster would do. Eh. Probably.

Raptin utters something—I turn to catch his lips wrench and move—when a sound comes out that doesn't resemble his voice at all—This—This unearthly gasp thing—

He immediately lurches, his hand clamping over my shoulder, and before I recognize it I feel my throat bend unnaturally beneath some tight, tight, tight grip and it starts to grow hard to breathe and stars start blinking in the back of my vision until I catch just on the edges those stained but stunning brilliant blue scales of hands latch and tug and tug as finally a fisted clump of brown hands comes undone.

I take in great, gasping breaths. It's a reluctant turn when I glance up. My heart sinks into my stomach.

"Whhh—wHhhh..." But I realize I can't quite breathe yet, so I'm stuck remembering and staring dumbly at a sky that I swear wasn't neon pink five seconds ago. Well... that is... neon pink but for two ginormous slits along the front of it, two ginormous green slits with slightly smaller but also gigantic slits of this insanely reflective black inside, and I think they're staring intently right at me.

Jkonna, in a bundle at my feet, pulls to her own and presses by my side. Her fingers search for mine and squeeze in such a way that suggests her fear of losing my grip and that's when I realize, oh, she's scared.

I'm not quite scared. I'm probably gonna realize this as a mistake in the near future. Maybe. Uh.

I startle back in this really awkward delayed reaction, tearing back from Raptin's touch, tearing back from my best friend's hand, tearing back from those tacky green irises, just being my usual mess of a human being overall, and my back slams into the trunk of a nearby tree. Winded enough already when I look up all I catch are fistfuls of those freakish spikes of black, black stars that I think are spiked but every time I try to get a better look at one they shift. Somewhere in the back of my throat, I taste the hint of bile.

Coughing. Softly. I wipe back at my cool forehead, knotted in these little fingerprints of sweat. Swallow. Ow. I think... dehydration. Mmph. Well, that's gonna suck in a little bit.

Can't even think for some amount of time, my world almost literally tipped upside-down, I have no way of connection with Droplet or Lone for assistance. Or Harei, who'd find a... a coconut, or something; no, I'm left with the horrible company of these stars. I don't notice it for some time, but eventually this creeping, pinching, sore pain oozes through my scaly spine and... and it takes just about all of my focus to remember how to _freaking breathe_ again. What little breaths I do exert control of come out in raspy wheezes. Not promising.

Then the voices. I hear one and it's enough for me to decide that I'm losing my mind.

 _Hmm. He's not stirring on his own. Shame. Thine word is mine own, Thomas; how dost we proceed with this bumbling idiot being his usual slob of a self? I'm afraid I have drawn a blank here, my dear friend._

A cough. _Why do you keep pretending that we're not in a relationship? I daresay, Iggy; dare I say._ There's this... chilling presence that wafts through my figure, and it's almost refreshing, did my lips not crack, my hands not grow numb, my back not freeze solid through. _See? I think he's stirring! We'll be fine, anyways._ Another cough. _And Iggy, I asked you a question! It's very rude of you not to answer!_

 _We have better things to do with our energy borrowed from the fool than chatter like nasaurs with time on our side! Thou hast no clue, thy fool!_

Another cough. _I beg your pardon, Iggy, for that comparison was quite the doozy._ He is given... a scoff. Ouch. Tough crowd, huh. _And Lone again? You must stop bashing the poor girl while she isn't in the immediate vicinity. Terribly rude, you gossip, you._ Sigh. _Oh. Right. What do we do about the ancient? Is it finally time we_ do _something_ _instead of sap our poor more or less master's every waking moment?_

I think Iggy groans here. Oh, what a dumb ancient, him—I think he burned his brain at some point with all the fire, or maybe enough smoke did him in. Hah. That's a horrible joke. _Of course we must do something! Stay idle and our companions risk... I know not! Death!_ A sputter. I didn't know a fire-wielding vivosaur had that much spit in their bodies as that one little— _Dino! Dino, shut up, thou fool! Thou remains... infuriating!_ Now it's this guy's turn to cough. His body, smoldering in flame-like scales, all just about twinkle out with that one weak breath. _I suppose it is permissible due to your health._

 _Um_. Oh, okay, that's me. I'm back. I think. Sort of. Surroundings... fuzzing out, but also solidifying, if I look at the right angle, which I think I'll take as a good sign. _So you guys are finally being responsive again or..? Aw, turd, I'm not dead, am—_

 _THEE SHALT SUCCUMB IF THEE DOST REFUSE TO COOPERATE SOUNDLY!_

Gosh, that and a crack of thunder, huh. Iggy's mad. Then again, what's new? He's always mad, if I look at him the right way, or maybe that's his bad side... but I dunno, Iggy's just a mess of ancient blood, or whatever it is that makes him up. Freaking... weirdo.

Thomas butts on in. I suddenly remember his ice powers like a slap to the face and that's probably why I've gone so numb, duh; trying to ease my pain. However that works. _You aren't dead yet, my queer friend!_ At that, my cheeks go hot and I try to look at him funny, but it's hard to do that when they're still just medals in my han—wait, wait, no, I think their own misty figures are starting to... take shape before my very own eyes.

Swallow. Blink. Slowly motion some brittle hands up to unrelenting eyes. Rub at for a good long time.

No. I pull them back and I've still got a pair of steely gray glancing back on me, the long icy sauropod neck twisted right back in my face and everything. With a squeak, I cry, _HI, THOMAS? WHY ARE YOU HERE? WHY ARE YOU EVEN—WH—WHHHH—WHY?_ This is... making me pretty uncomfortable; heck, I don't even remember the last time these two got out of their medals, much less when their smoldering, shiny gazes got so... foreboding. Oh, geez, are they gonna fight the pink sky monster?

A snort. Iggy tosses his flaming mane back in my direction. _Of course we plan to conquer that beast. She's most certainly become smitten with thou and thee all, and... well, it would be most unfortunate to meet one's end here._

I try at a questioning blink. Turns out harder than I was thinking. Iggy's much better at his bewildered stare that gets me all nervous to go looking into. _Ummm... thanks?_

 _Oh, you're helping too, lad!_ Thomas throws back his great, icy skull again, his thick trunk of a neck sailing, and remarks, _Of course you're helping! Was it just my old Iggy and myself, I'm sure we wouldn't be able to keep half as much attention to the situation as you! Besides, we've expended so much of your energy in preparation for this moment that I do think it'd be a rash idea indeed to move very far from your presence, so much as it runs through our veins._

Oh that's just freaking lovely. _Well, turd, did you take from Jkonna and Raptin too while you were at it?_ Though I throw my hands up—and it doesn't feel too woozy doing it—my voice comes out all whiny and squeaky and an embarrassment to deal with, so in the end I don't even get anywhere with what I was going with. Freaking... stupid... _gahh—_

 _It would only be fair,_ mutters Iggy, before giving this disdainful sniff so condescending he must've pulled it out of his rear end. My gosh.

I realize I don't have much to say to that, so I roll my eyes at the backs of my colossal friends. _Guys, at least... ask? Aaah, whatever, I guess it's too late for that... hnnnn, you guys are bullies..._ I puff out my cheeks at them, though they don't have the... the _privilege_ to see that either.

 _Yes, but if you intend to see it in that light, you must also recall that we're the bullies about to save your life, and all of your friends too._

I roll my eyes again at them, just for good measure. They don't see that either. Ugh. Well, I guess that explains where some of the turd we were going through earlier came from. Pah, wasn't just our faults... dang it... now I'm all moody... Shaking my head, my spines going every which way on my head, I pull myself back on steady feet to grab my best friend's hand again, and to brush up by Raptin. My stomach sinks as their faces visibly color.

"Wh-What in the world was—ummm—D-Dino, what are they diga-doing?" And with that, like a sucker punch, Jkonna's little brown fingers clench about mine. Her face pinches with it; she pulls at a lip; she just altogether stiffens against me. Raptin doesn't quite pinch like her, though I catch some of the hidden places between joints—elbows, that weird spot beneath his eyes—crinkle, just slightly.

Deep breath. "I think they're stopping Miss Pink Monster from, uh, killing us? S-Sooooo you know."

She glances back at the casually-striding ancients, which I now realize are also very casually passing through any piece of shrubbery that happens along a foot or swooping tail, and their bodies literally sail without difficulty through tree trunks. I have to stop looking for a moment, my head kinds swims at the sight of it, and I already took a pretty bad spill today. At some point, my best friend's icy irises switch back to me, then the ancients, then me again; her mouth pops open too, and I watch a little string of fear pass those dark, frigid eyes of hers.

"Ummm, I'm not the only one who's sort of freaking out about this... right, digadig? Uhmmm..." A hand goes running through her long stream of red hair, worrying past the tangles, the knots, the twigs without a care. "This is... we- _well_ , this, uh, this _is_ , uh-huh... this mo-most certainly... is." Cough. She wipes a little at one of her eyes.

All Raptin does is take one look at Iggy and Thomas and the Pink One From Above and decide for himself. "I dislike our odds, Dino. The situations births... uncomforting thoughts."

"Hah!" I try at a smile and end with a wince. "Yeah, well, you hang onto your uncomforting thoughts there, Rapty, cuz I think they're here to stay! Aaaah..!" And it almost sounds like a laugh, but we all know it's just a really disappointing attempt at one. Coughing, I wipe at my own sad eyes then, and I mumble, "Um... anyone wanna help me... uh... with the... with the situation, now? I uh... I uh..." But I don't have anything else to say to that. I'm so dried out, ah, geez, it's getting a little hard to stand on my own again...

Before any sense of a response comes at me, I take the moment to step and wobble and step again and slam to my knees on the mucky earth below. My palms I shove into the mess, to try and pull myself up, but too soon too late I realize that was a horrible idea and now I'm stuck on my hands and knees in the mud, and my tail is flying through the air like a freaking flagpole.

It's Droplet who comes to my rescue in the end. Droplet and her water and her sorta-kindness-sorta-pity, or whatever our relationship has come to at this point. I'm just thankful to have her around most of the time. She kneels back toward me slightly from her partly-floating place in the air, and she spurts water over my muck, and she lets me grasp her side to force myself up again, and she sends some of her waters surging through my veins, her energy cool and crisp, her thoughts much more refreshing than mine, much more coherent... and I shake my head and start going after those crazy ancients again.

After her pops by Lone, chirping happily to everyone and no one simultaneously about I'm not really sure what, and after Lone pops by Harei, who I call over and climb upon and then it's okay, my hands wrapped tight around her thick, gold neck, and I sigh: and then it's okay, now it's okay, now it'll be just fine.

And I'm not really sure why, but it's now that the vertigo crawls through my veins, and squeezes my body, and reminds me of all the turd I've slew so far. And I can do this. And come on. And move already, freaking... just move. It's not even you: it's Harei, moving for you.

It's still a little scary, though. I think no matter how many times I do some things, it'll still come off as scary when I do it again. And... I don't know: something around the whole concept of running head-first into danger themselves, fire and ice incarnate, not to mention the ancients they are and what all that entails... some part of it still frightens me, and some part of me hopes and understands if my friends stay behind. Raptin, I turn back and note, he's hung back in the little clearing where we stood, a pocket of air in this green sea... but aw, turd, where'd Jkonna go. Ah... gosh... leave it to Jkkie to go off and disappear, huh.

It takes an unceremonious amount of time to catch up to my galumphing ancient friends. Wish it took longer. Ahhh, gosh, I just feel the surge of power the closer I come to them, and that just makes me more and more nervous until my heart's leaping up my throat with each second passing, just begging to get the heck out of here right now.

And of course it's as I take my place behind these two blockheads that my best friend unearths again. On top of Bliss—her own... sorta golden beast. Her red hair flung this way and that in the fickle wind, her face hard and yet soft and weak too, and I think she hates herself for coming but she's also happy she did. Ah, gosh, she didn't _have_ to. I-I'd figure this out on my own, um, somehow.

But anyways. I guess she did. Rearing up beside me, Jkonna cries, "Aaahhh, Diiinoooo, what are we supposed to diga-do nooooww?"

"Ummm..." I blush. Ah. Oh no. I didn't think this far. "Help... the ancients?" No, that's stupid. It's all over her face too. Stupid. "No, that's, um. Why are you looking at me like that, Jkkie? You're... making me uncomfortable!" That's also stupid and probably not necessary but it's all I can think about now, that pinched face in my head and the sinister scowl slashed upon it.

"We can't help them! Dino—Diga-Do you not remember when we tried to fight Thomas _without_ Iggy? And what kind of a bloody mess diga-d'you think that was? Huuuh?" There the scowl deepens. "D-Dino! You can't go rushing into things like this! We could get hurt for no rea—"

A telltale cough from the frigi, and, _Silence, buffoons! Your presence is strong enough. See where we lead toward the pink one from... above, as you so called her?_ His tail flicks in the general direction of the sky. _She's coming down, now, if you look carefully, and I'm certain that with such a force as hers there is no hope of keeping track of everything. Go to the side—differing sides—and do that, would you? Just keep track. We'll see it from there._

Some tiny squeak bubbles up in my throat and I'm stuck trying to swallow it for a good few seconds there. _Y-Ye-Yeah! O-Okay! Um!_ Nervous, I turn back to Harei and her dark, dark blue eyes. _Hey, can we... go to the, uh, the left of them? Jkonna... take the... the right?_

 _U-Um! Okay! Of course!_ squeaks the ever-obedient ourano, so on we go. I try asking Droplet to shift over toward the back of the situation and keep an eye on it there, and eventually she complies, but turd if she doesn't like screwing with me first. Lone sort of shifts to this little wedge between those two, like we have a clock's points or something, I don't know, but then I just grow more nervous thinking about the points of attack and how the ancients are actually trying to prepare instead of just rushing on in to smite some turd or another. Also the transparent thing's pretty creepy.

Today is just not a good day for me, huh. Guess I can't do much about that.

 _I-I think your hair looks... um, not very tangled today! That's... a good thing! F-For your day!_ Oh my gosh. Thanks, Harei? I mean, thanks for trying, I guess?

Not everyone feels that way though. _Don't lie to him if it looks as ugly as it does! Harei, that's rude, in a way!_ Oh, Droplet. How... murderous of you.

 _Nnn..._ She whimpers and I can feel quivers ache up on her back. _But... But it doesn't look that bad today... a-and that's a good thing... and that means you're doing okay! Which—Which is a—a—a_ good _thing!_

 _Heh._ I gently pat at her head. _Thanks. I'll, uh, I'll be fine. Just kinda tired. And annoyed. Apparently the ancients were sapping our energy for I don't even know how long to try and get ready for when something like this happened, which... which I guess is good but it's also rude and... ugh. I don't know sometimes, y'know? I just don't really feel it anymore._ Soft sigh. _But—Hey—Hey, don't look at me like that—it's not like_ that _is gonna happen again. Because it's not!_ Oh, turd, Harei— _I don't hate myself! Harei, I do not hate myself! S-Stop crying! Why are you crying!_

Those tiny clear beads of tears softly string down her cheeks, down her face, and land somewhere far below on the mucky earth. She swallows before she can say anything, which is kinda funny, in a mean way though, so I don't say anything either. _D-Don't hate yourself ever again, Diiiinooooo! That was... scary! And bad... and depre—iiiih—ehnnnngggggg..._ And at this point she shuts down, so I shut off too. Poor thing. She worries too much about others. Way too much. Gonna worry herself into some really sucky things one of these days... well. I guess she already has. Aww.

I don't remember my sister very well, but there are small pieces of things. I feel like... she cried a lot too. Hah—I mean, she was young back then, and I was too, and we probably both cried a lot... but it's just a feeling that something cute and sad like that stayed with her, wherever she went. Wherever it is we're looking for.

After these ancients, hu—

Oh. Oh that's lovely. Hah—No, no, no, no it's not at all. Oh my gosh.

Neon pink scales, laced in neon pink wings—a very unearthly tone of color for an ancient—swoop and scrape through the air like it's a substance she alone controls. In the process her spiny underbelly, chock full of these terrifying little skewer things, stalactites on her freaking stomach, gets forced and uplifted into the midday light, and the sheen of unhealthy spikes makes me—nearly—oh my gosh—very nearly—I think wet myself. That is... That is not something I'd want to be under.

Her wings she thrust are caught in branches, these miniscule pieces of broccoli in comparison to her span. I'm just... a snack, or something, at this pathetic height. Oh—Oh, if not for the wings she'd probably skewer me, because look at that, on the edges there are more spikes to be afraid of. Well—no—no wonder they wanted my energy they casually stole over the weeks or months or one of the two, I'm not even sure, they were so... sneaky about it.

But transparent Thomas and Iggy—she and her spiny belly sail straight through them. Alright this freaks me out a little more now and then before my eyes she slowly, slowly dissolves herself into—oh my gosh—now _she's_ becoming transparent—does that even work—I don't think it should—and then as I'm staring with these freakishly wide eyes my ancient friends dart backwards out of the Belly of Death, so that's one relief, but now those big, big neon green eyes, like a toxin, go staring at me and... and...

Something about it... gnaws on my skull, no, my... my very being aches to bend to—oh— _Oh—_ okay, alright, what in the world is going on. I think I better stop looking at her now but when I try to I suddenly realize that I can't and this awful, awkward smile splinters off my face and I try to scream, to yell, to throw myself off of Harei and none of these things are working until out of nowhere a gold whip-like tail slaps across my figure. Then for this glorious split second I force my head out of those gleaming, broiling pits of hatred.

"Wh-What was—"

 _She... tried to possess you, Dino! I-I-I'm sorry I hurt you but she—but she—_

I gasp softly. _Ha-Harei, shut up, oh my gosh, it's fine. You just, like, saved me. It's really freaking fine._ I mean, yeah, now there's a huge jutting gash that's starting to resemble a mouth in my shoulder, a bloody mouth, but it's fine. I think being possessed by an ancient would be much less fun than a gash in my shoulder, but I'm only speaking from the experience of my twin who I practically lost because she was possessed, so who knows, maybe it'd be—

 _Dino, shut up._

 _Yeaaah, you're probably right._ Droplet's good at that.

Slowly I return to the freakish scene in front of me. As the big pink bird of absolute murder forces her body to dissolve—and then I realize the wing on top of me's gonna skewer me—then I get Harei to move right now—and she does—as do Droplet and Lone and please probably Jkkie too—and as all of this is going on, Thomas and Iggy sort of stare at her, waiting, I guess, for the right moment, and once this moment comes, whatever it's determined by, my flaming and stout igno rams his skull into the large pink one in front of him—even larger than his skull and Thomas's skull combined, though Thomas's head is kinda small so that's not saying as much as it sounds like it is.

This vaporous blood spurts from the bent, beaked nose. Oh—he just—he just literally—But before I get the chance to swallow that little morsel of strength, Thomas then swoops in and sends a thick, icy breath of razor air to spread slowly and smoothly along the body of the monster as it shuffles and crashes to the earth, now free of the many trees that once held it up.

I think that part's what really scares me. I try to get Harei to step on the wing but when she reluctantly does it turns out there's nothing to step on.

That takes me a moment to register.

We-Well. If nothing else, she can't become, like, _solid_ again and swoop at us or anything, since all the trees would be stuck in her body and that just... that would probably suck. S-So she... probably... uh... won't do that. R-Right? Though it doesn't really make sense that I'm worrying about my own puny bum if she's not even focused on me. Trying to... snap at my ancient friends, and then I realize she must've skewered herself into the, like, earth or something, because she's not moving.

Maybe the earth's both transparent and solid. Actually, I don't wanna think about it. That'll take it to a whole other level that I think I'd much rather leave alone.

Turns out that it's possible to skewer your transparent self into the earth. Anyways, that's the perfect moment for Thomas to get super close to the bird, pull himself onto his hind legs alone, and then slam far, far down into her back, which then I think very casually... cracks. I watch as one part bends unequally as another part, sticking straight up, a mountain range in her spine, and... and ice slowly begins to accumulate upon her being and now the mountains are snowy and... and... oh.

That wasn't... too bad. That—That wasn't so bad. Oh my gosh. We actually—I mean— _they_ actually did it. They just... got rid of that bird and... now she's dissipating... and now she's gone.

Whoa.

I just stare wide-eyed for a moment, until Thomas calls back, _Weird, huh, seeing one of us peel out of existence? Not that hard, if you know what you're doing._ A sigh. _Things have changed. They weren't always so aggressive. I wasn't... always so aggressive, as I was when that Bullwort fellow of yours attempted to revive me. Of course it was you who found me, but even so._

Something that has nothing to do with the ancient hits me in the face.

 _Wait a—Wh-When did it matter that it was me who found your fossil? Can't... a-anyone do that? Um? Um..._

 _Why else did we sit there for so long untouched, Dino?_ There is a soft chortle.

Wait a... Wait... I... I... _I had something to do with that?_

My frigi offers a shrug. My igno snorts. They don't know any better than I do. Well... Well, okay then, this is... uncomfortable. Ah, wow, it really... makes me miss Diggins and everyone back on Vivosaur Island. Diggins... knew everything, heh, I swear. We could just stroll up there and ask him about it, right now, if we never left. And he'd probably get all scatterbrained and forget a few times, but... I miss that. I really do. And it's—it's easier to think about the ancient—this crazy ancient that I think... I think technically just _died_ and I don't wanna think about it... I wanna think about Diggins. Diggins is... is nice.

The thought of him, and then Rosie, and Bea Ginner and Nick Nack or maybe it's Bea Nack now, I'm not sure, and even freaking Woolbeard, even though he's pretty terrifying on his own... the thought of everyone distracts me enough to miss the little raptor sprinting up at me until he springs onto Harei and plops himself there.

Oh. Uh. Golden body. Uhh... blue face, these midnight blue limbs... and—oh. Duh. Raptin. Battle form. Right... right.

 _Raptin?_

 _Dino, did you not take note?_ He winces. _There are more, too._

 _What? No—We just—_

A sad little grin touches at the side of his maw. _No, Dino. There are more._ And he turns and points and he's right. There _are_ more. This whimper sort of a look pinches my lip as I turn and try to get a look at my ancient friends, which thankfully don't come off as all that winded from their first assault... and now that I think about it, all they did was a bit of an extension over their already-powerful attacks, so they really didn't take much of a bite in their stores. Well. I glance back at the haze in the horizon. Yet, that is.

Releasing a slow, slow breath, I glance back at Jkonna, her arms squeezed tight around her acro's neck. "Hey, um!" I call back. My cheeks are hot. My... palms are sweaty. "There's more, Jkkie! There's... more coming! We, uh, probably should get a move on!" I wipe at my moist palm and point it out to the back again, where Raptin gestured, where a small swarm of discoloration forms on top of the jungle beneath and behind, ditched... Ah, those surreal forms are seriously freaking me out.

Another release. My best friend's head darts up and down in a fiery dip. "A-Alright!" she cries, "that's... umm... we'll just be reeaaaaally fast!"

We both pretend that the haunted stare in her eyes isn't there. As we pass by her acro, Jkonna gives her a sure pat upon the head and springs up—nearly falling to the foliage below, may I add—one hand latching onto my ankle, the other and the rest of her body sent sprawling. I'm fast as I scoop her up onto Harei with the rest of us.

Shaking beneath my nervous hands. Bangs and longer layers alike strewn over a tilted head, facing the vivosaur we lie on. Her little hands clasp mine; her cheeks puff out; there's a storm in that face, and in that storm a story, but I don't ask and she doesn't answer.

Bliss darts back. Her musty, gold body flickers toward us one last time to mumble, _I guess I'll try and keep on with the ancients. Who knows, with everything else going on..._ and she leaves it at that. Harei offers her the most awkward send-off I've heard her yet say. It pretty much ended when it started. When I look back from our little knot of vivosaurs—Droplet peeling off, Lone darting along beside her, Thomas and Iggy settling toward the mob, slowly, slowly—Raptin points at his figure in silent question. I shake my head. He stays, though, in his little raptor form.

Jkonna doesn't move from right by me. She won't talk, and she hardly responds to the panicked running my ourano starts up. There's this quiet, like a tangible presence, a Silence sitting with us, and as I glance back up at Raptin, his glittering golden orbs give away his own hesitation.

I swallow. "We-Well. Um." Turd. Everyone's staring at me now and I just completely lost whatever I was thinking about. Aahh. Now what. "Ummmmmhhh... Uh—Well! Uh! Ancients!" Yeah, _duh_ , you _dummy_ ; never saw _that_ coming. Geez. I'm an embarrassment to my _self_. A hot flush settles across my figure, turning my scales this bright mango, and lightening the sheen of sweaty black along my limbs, and I feel awkward, and it is awful.

It's just like... how am I supposed to go on after this? We're... scared. And we're not in a good place. And I'm sure Raptin's not the only one regretting everything we've gone through so far. I'm sure Jkonna wishes this never happened and... and I bet... if I look deep into myself... I bet somewhere inside I'm upset too. But... ah, dang it, some part of me can't quit...

"You know... what's in Dina? An ancient. Possession. Has been for... thousands of... forever. I dunno. A long time. Wonder if... that has anything to do with this, hu-huh." Oof. Yeah, tough crowd. Honestly, I'm giving myself a hard time too, it's not like I can expect anything better from the others. "Maybe... she's on the next island! Or... the one after that! Ne-Never know... just... might be! Gotta... keep looking. And... she-she'll show up. E-E..." Oh, gosh. S-Stop stuttering. "Eventually! He-Hehh..."

I glance away and very not subtly wipe at my eyes.

"It'll be _fine_ ," I whisper mostly to myself, "we'll... figure it out. We... always do. And we... we need to find her. I can't live with myself until I know... know if... if she's okay! Ye-Yeaaah... and maybe she's fine too... maybe she's... maybe she's..."

I have to let go of Jkonna to wrap my arms around myself.

We're all quiet after that.

It's just... really complicated, huh. A mess. The whole lot of us. Three, four, maybe even five ancients on our tail. We send the two we very graciously have on our side at them. We toss what vivosaurs we can spare. Obviously we're clueless. Obviously they're starting to think, dang, maybe we shouldn't have gone with Dino. Why wouldn't they? I'm the one who wanted to go... in the _rain_ , of all things. I was so dead set on it, wasn't I, that I rushed through this storm even as I lost _one_ of my vivosaurs. Because that wasn't enough. Because it's never enough.

I'll just keep... freaking... dragging myself forward anyways, huh. Ugh...

But it's not even like they can leave, now that they're done with me. Because we're stuck here. Because I got us stuck here, because I wanted to find my sister, because I wanted to figure out the chances of somebody who I probably let die back when she was, what, _two, three,_ instead of living with it. You know. Cuz of me. Not that I ever care about those kinds of things and... oh gosh...

I try to swallow quietly. Doesn't really work out. My cheeks heat. My face is cold, though, cold with... with... um... And I'm gonna keep not subtly wiping my face now.

Eventually I just can't keep quiet anymore, and I wrest out a tiny "sorry" from the back of my wet, knotted throat.

It'd be better if someone yelled, or punched, or... hit me already, struck out. It's the knowing, the full-on understanding that they can't do anything about this, the powerless misery anyways, that's really... just a... a... aah, I can't even think of something to say to this.

It's a lame reply when Raptin finally does. "You say that so often." I glance back up at him; battle form dissipated, all that remains is a once-stern dinaurian now sagging as he watches the trees pass by beneath us.

I sigh. "Huh. Guess I do. Sorry about"—wince—"about that." Another sigh. "Pff. Look at all this land... Remember when I was _excited_ about it? Oh, boy..." And I just shake my head after that, feeling like this gigantic loser idiot. Because that's what I am sometimes. Huh.

"Dino." I jolt.

"Wh-What?" Back at Raptin. There's a hardness in his gaze. A part of me's wondering if now he'll finally get at me, and another's kind of hoping he doesn't, and this last part can't really comprehend much but my heart thumping in my ears.

His lip curls. "There is no use being hard on yourself now that all has already occurred."

"Yeah, uh. Um..." I try not to come out whiny, but I think I do. "G-Get mad or something... y-you're kinda freaking me out he-here..." Oh, gosh. My cheeks heat again after that.

"Dino." And he looks away again. "Anger is not a solution. It only adds to the problem."

"Sh-Shut up," I mumble. "Not like we have a freaking _solution._ Just... yell or something... I-I don't know..."

"I see no reason to."

"Nnnn... But Raptin, I've—"

"Perhaps you have, perhaps you have not. But I refuse to yell at you."

Quiet again. I puff my cheeks and mumble, "You yelled at me when I kept calling you Rapty... and when I was trying to get you to tell me why you really wanted to come on this—this stupid journey in the first place..."

"That"—the hardness returns, strict and fierce, and then it dissolves into a strange, soft pity—"that was in jest. You understand the difference between... Dino." Such a strange softness, almost alluring... a dreadful softness, a softness in silent but constant pain.

Jkonna, from her slumped little perch, kind of glances at me, kind of looks away, kind of tugs at her lip with her teeth, kind of sighs. She's gotta be disappointed; I see it in her eyes. They're glass, aren't they. Easy to break. Easy to see through.

Gosh, I'm just _really_ sad right now... gaaaah...

Before I can tell what's happening, I think I lose consciousness or something for a second there because the next thing I know I've collapsed in on myself; my sobs are embarrassingly loud and hard on my throat and I can't stop thinking about how _stupid_ this all is. And... _glass_ , and breaking, and broken, and it's hard to focus on anything outside of that.

At some point Raptin came close. I feel my head resting against his shoulder—his, uh, now-wet shoulder. Ew. Ugh. Good job, Dino. One of his arms has gently wrapped around me, in this sort of way that stops me for a moment, and I can't quite understand what's going on or what he's—and then it comes to me. The protective, stern look. The silent mourning.

"Raptin..?"

He turns immediately. "Yes?"

"Nnn..." I can't quite look at him. "Am I awful?"

A whisper of a smile on his lips. "Only... sometimes. But not always."

"Oh." I try at this smile. It's probably horrible. "That's not so bad."

"No." Gently. "It is not." Like a... Like an older brother would. Something about it's almost weird, but it's... it's not weird either, it's... it makes sense. I think of Duna, I can't help it, if he's going to pull that look then I'm going to think of Duna... but it's safe here too.

I think... maybe this is what Raptin wanted. I can't imagine how he felt—thinking about it now—when I up and disappeared with my sister, way back when we were all so young. He must've hated that. That kinda stuff probably messes with you, that kinda powerlessness leaning over you from such a... tender, young age.

Suddenly I remember Jkonna, and it's like she punched me, though I doubt she's moved this entire time. So I turn back where she still is, slightly more responsive than the last time I looked at her, and I go and ask, "Do _you_ wanna yell at me? Ummmm... you can! I... I probably deserve it and Raptin's just... wussing out on me!"

"I am not wussing out on—"

"You tooootaaallllyyy aaaaaareee, come onnnnnnnnnnnnnn—"

"Dino, do not _eve—_ "

I push him over and then both of us nearly fall off of poor Harei who I now realize is sobbing her poor heart out of her poor chest, that poor thing, and Jkonna takes this moment to mutter, "No, I"—and catch us falling and screech—"Gyaaah! Diga-Don—Diiiiinoooooooo!" and fling herself into my arms again, pulling me up and then Raptin too with this freakish intensity, her hair flying like fireworks.

Here she slaps me. But only once. And only because I could've killed myself just then, but that's coming from her, not me, as I personally think I would've been fine. She almost slaps Raptin, but then she decides that it's my fault he almost fell, but that I don't deserve a second slap for that or something. I'm not completely sure.

Quiet again. I go, "Sooo. Uh. Harei? Will the others be coming back soon or—aaah, are we screwed? I'm—I'm suddenly realizing we might've made a bad decision here! Aahh! Turd! Turd, Turd, turd tur _d turd turd tur—_ "

 _It's fine! IT'S FINE, DINO, IT'S FIIIIINE! AHHh!_ Oh no, now we're freaking her out too. _THEY STARTED RUNNING AFTER US AWHILE AGO BUT THEY HAVEN'T CAUGHT UP YET BECAUSE THOMAS IS VERY SLOW! IT'S OKAAAAAY, DIIINOOOO!_

Oh. Wow. That's almost super lame, but I think I'm too emotional to care.

Something about this is so _not_ lame that I burst out into laughter, scaring all of my companions with it. Eventually Jkonna joins me, and Raptin doesn't quite, because he's muted like that, and I think Harei tries too but she's still crying too hard to giggle without choking on snot and tears.

And it's better. I glance up and—oh—the land is coming to an end up over there. I can see trees parting and the sand bar jutting out and the horizon meets water in this wonderfully rippling pool. Some more steps from Harei and... and we'll get out of here.

Though I guess the ancients will still be following. A-At least Droplet's fast... n-not Foster though, no, no Foster... aah... and maybe we'll find another island soon, and maybe Dina will be on it, o-or maybe not, but she'll be on the _next_ one, or...

"Heh." I blush as Raptin grins again. "What is that?"

Oh, geez. Let's not learn how much of that I said aloud.

"Y-Yeaaah, Raptin!" Alright. Nice save. "We gotta find our sister!"

He's not amped at this. " _Your_ sister."

"Raptin, at this point you're basically my olde—"

"Tha-That is surely an overstatement!" And he says it so loudly and sharply I almost let him off.

Well. Almost. "Our sister."

"Dino, silence your foolery!"

"Oooouuur sister! Hah!"

Jkonna waits a nicely-timed moment, jutting into Raptin's shout when she cries, "OUR SISTER!" loud enough to wipe that scowl right off his face.

So he gives up, because I'm obviously not gonna, and Jkonna's obviously not gonna either.

Thank goodness for some people. And—ahhh—thank goodness for water. For once, huh. Heh.

 **I wasn't expecting that chapter to get so feelsy but then it did xD Ahh! That's okay though, I think it gave Raptin a needed moment. Rapty! heheh... Poor Dino though! He doesn't usually get upset with himself, as you can tell, but like his whole dinopression thing in TSFF, it eventually does crumble down on him. He puts too much stress in there sometimes.**

 **The ancients are coming! Aaah!**


	27. Rt: A Staunched Recovery

**Well... can't avoid Rupert forever huh hahahaha**

 **(Rupert: ...what is that supposed to mean)**

 **Anyways chapter twenty-seven! Wow I'm burning through these chapters! And this one's getting posted early, and I'll be finishing a few more later this week since we have a convenient break for school for a nice five days, haha. Not, like, spring break, slight less amount of days off in a row, but it's still helpful.**

 **for getting three chapters done in one theoretical week**

 **(Rupert: …)**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 27: A Staunched Recovery

 _Rupert_

The events of the past night lay heavy in my head, but I seem unable to grow any more weary than that point: so there I stay. Drooping, weakened, tired, waste, and no further and no wearier than so. What bother, yes? It brings to mind the sleepless nights I took upon myself in the past. When I was too hollow to care. And then later, when Dina could not sleep and I stayed up with her, despite the state of my body. Foolish, perhaps, but I liked it then, with her... much more so than I did the times prior, and without. Dark times... lonely indeed.

My head pounds, softly, aching. So much as my eyes fall they also raise, in this turbulent tandem I am unable to tear out of. Which is fine, mostly, until I grow so weary it hurts to stay this way. Though if I rested I would not sleep, but lie there tossing and turning and... fruitless time which could be spent elsewhere.

Not that there is much of an elsewhere to go. Dawn creeps just outside of my congested vision, one that narrows upon the figure bent into the bed Mier has lent out on a multitude of occasions now, this latest being the crash that overtook her after she won for us. Kind? Thoughtful? I am thankful for the desecration of Illit but... but I only think of the limp body she shed in order to fight, the limp body that I let lie to be overtaken again.

I swallow, glancing back. No use thinking of it. Nothing will change.

But truly it has come to a point where I can hardly tell anymore... Ah, maybe if I attempt to rest now, I will find it... but some stubborn part of me defies all possible judgment, and so I remain squinting at the redhead in a crumpled, scaly mass by where I sit at the edge of the bed. Waiting, waiting... for nothing. That is, nothing probable. Nothing of note. Nothing new. Heh... Oh, Dina, how transparent you have made me.

Resting somewhat against myself, somewhat against the wall, I gently lean my head up toward the ceiling. But a smudge of darkish blue connects to my vision, too little to catch with eyes so thoroughly limited. I cup my lip as a soft yawn flows from deep inside of me, but still I find no safety, no sleep. So nearly-snug and almost-settled as I am, I just about miss the footsteps when they come, rough scratches of foot on wood.

I do not bother to tilt my head from where it lies. Gently I murmur, "Yes?" and as I do so I feel a hot blush crawl down my cheeks, down my neck as the footsteps halt just in front of me.

"Pff. Rupert, please don't tell me you've been awake this whole time." Twisted tone, a playful mirth, but a mature one at that, and sorely missing the slight feminine lilt that enraptured him the first time we met.

Ah. Mier.

"P-Perhaps I have." If only I sounded more confident when I said it. "I shall... live. I have gone without rest for longer increments of time. This is... This is no"—pausing to fight the yawn threatening to break through—"no... trouble. No trouble at—at all. S-See, I am fine."

There is a pause as I feel the bed shudder with the added weight of its owner. Mier lolling by me; as I lean to take in his face there is a bewitching little smirk on his lip that twitches as I glimpse him and he notes it duly. "Mmm. You sure sound it." Oh, do not play with me. "I swear. If there's anyone that didn't deserve to get any rest, I mean, it's me. Should I thank you or feel... offended? Worried?"

"I-It's fine," I mumble in a voice I meant to sound stronger. Well. That did not come out as I had intended.

"Pff..." The little dot of a twinkle in otherwise dark pupils. "Uhhhh-huh. Sure don't look fine over there. You asleep yet?"

I know he is playing with me—I-I know—but I cannot help the stubborn rush of heat to my cheeks. Fumbling, fumbling, I try to alter his focal point from myself. "Mier... why did you never tell us about the ancient? Please, I merely wonder... Yes, I... I know you were never so bold as to tell another completely, but even so..!"

Even through my guise of torment I can tell that he finds this somewhat shaming to remember, though not in a particularly negative way. Mier acts his fault as a folly. "Why! I, uh... I... got embarrassed. Besides. Ancients are sort of big deals, and to go and let it out wouldn't be exactly pretty, mmh... And you guys have already exhibited your fine traits of _running away_ from ancients. So... well." Small shrug.

It is palpable that he knows what I attempt at... but he does not throw me off, either. Waiting, grinning. "How much of you... the you we knew, I—ah—how much of it was real?"

"Ummm... Heh. Course you wanted to..." A bashful touch and he cannot look at me. "You'd be surprised. More than you'd think—more than I'd think was me. See, she... she never just downright, um, killed me, or anything, because she knew that with so little people around as it was I... I guess it was a risky move? I don't know. So long as I was... i-in there... I'm not an ancient or anything. Maybe my corpse would... rot. Puh. That's... well. She didn't kill me. And then I didn't age. So there's that."

My heart I feel beating in my chest. I scoot closer to my friend, struggling to pay him the attention he has so dutifully given me. "There is... There is that." Focus, focus... "What is living for so long like? That is—without aging? Without... change?"

His gaze begins to dart off again, but Mier manages to hold himself upon me so openly as he can manage. "You start painting on the walls, and the ceiling. And repainting. And repainting. It's... It's lonely. Heh. You never get anyone out here. It was so surprising... almost, dare I say, like a _spell_ being broken or something silly like that, seeing people again. It'd been so... long. I um... appreciated having more around, though Illit tried to throw the lot of you off a few times."

Ah. "But we... but we stayed." And I am... pleased that we did. Y-Yes.

"Rupert, will you let me ask you something and actually get an answer out of you now?"

"A-Ahh... um, surely..." My eyes stray to the wooden floorboards beneath our feet.

And so he does. Mier is quiet when he asks me, "Did you sleep at all last night?" and remains quiet when I utter a little shake of my head no. Quiet when he tries, "Why?" and quiet when he waits for an answer. I can feel the concern feed off of him, and I try not to glimpse at him for how nervous I am of his response to my... lacking state.

So I am quiet when I tell him. "I could not sleep is... is all. Um... it was all... there was..." Ah, even with the commotion and the cease and the destruction of a more or less living being in front of my very own eyes, all I see is her cold, pale body left out in the open, for someone such as myself to try and revive, reawaken, something. Defenseless. It matters not the consequences when I put myself into the moment again. It feels as if I made the wrong decision, like it was possible to choose and save a faulty person, like there was not a loss in either choice.

And there was. But when I look at it like this all I see is the one I put myself through. And I cannot help myself and I wonder... I wonder why I did not choose Dina. And I know why, in my heart, I do, but that does not stop me so soon. I wish it did. This feeling is so dull and cumbersome and... _hard_ to bear.

"Hey." Slowly my gaze pulls up to my friend. He offers a little quirk of the lip, this happy little grin. "Just... Remember what all those vivosaurs said? They looked pretty happy to see you—I mean. Besides the dimetro. But I think he's always like that."

I cannot stop the arrival of a belated, lopsided smile. "No—you are right. He _is_ always like that, Torn. He has a strange affinity to Dina, one that he thinks in that head of his gives him right to... as if claim her. He is an amusing creature."

Muted laughter. "Yeah. I mean, I know a few better words than amusing, but I guess that one works alright too." A bit of a rude twinge ties into his words and I pull against my friend, shaking my head, smiling slightly.

"Unkind of you, Mier."

He laughs again. Softer. "Aladee already has a thing against the ancient who isn't even still in here, and therefore me, so I think I'll say whatever the heck I want about any of them."

I turn toward him: "That does not make it any more kind," and he snorts, rolling his eyes playfully.

"Because I care."

"The attitude suggests as much, thank you."

"My _gosh_! You are..! Rupert!" And there the laughter bursts into a louder sort. "Aaaahhg! Passive-aggressive! Kidding or no, that could burn someone!"

And I have nothing to say to that but I am afraid I feel myself blush again, stubborn emotions, and before I know it I sense the bed shift to our one side and I bump against Mier and turn and oh... oh, she has risen. Orange curls a sprawling, tangled mess about her face, the eyes sunken, the scales pale, lackluster.

With a soft wince I glance helplessly at the pinkette and he turns to grin at the wall where he does not have to put up with the _passive-aggressive_ as he so puts it... I swear I feel so foolish whenever one of them just so feels the need to bring that up again... Oh, _but it is true_ , they say... aaah...

"Rupert?" he murmurs, "where are your vivosaurs exactly? They're... around here, right? Y'know. Uh. Just in case."

"They must still be asleep..." I attempt to fend off yet another yawn at the thought of it. "I do not blame them, after the scare earlier... Ah, Illit was frightening, Mier, v-very much so..." Some part of me tries to ignore the dramatic stare from Zoazoa off in our direction, while another can hardly keep up with the fact that she is also awake and present in the conversation, struggling so much to focus on the one that was already there in it.

Mier shifts to accompany the weight my head makes as it rests against his shoulder. "Tch... You don't sound all that scared when you say it like that." His tone is warm, though, when he tells me this.

"Ummmm..." Were I any more awake than I currently am, I may have started at the sudden interlude; as it is, I hardly note it. "Are you dating?"

Oh. We-Well it seems I cannot ignore that, now c-can I?

"Aa-AAh! N-N-Nnn... No!" My voice goes off on a rather unpleasantly high pitch and I flinch back at the screech of it. "I am not in love with Mier! I... I am not!" Be-Because I... that is _preposterous_! Between my flurried squeak of a rebuke and any attempts to structure it, I can hear my pink-haired friend break off into little bouts of fluttering laughter, and it does not improve my mood. Oh, if anything I grow more desperate to articulate this point that only grows further out of my grasp the more I try to tell this girl that no, no, I am _not_ dating someone else... Wh-What kind of a foul, wastrel spawn would I be if I broke off from her without saying so? What: _just because I wanted to_?

Something about the fact that Dina has not even an inkling to any of these notions spurns my desperation. The innocent, harmless stare off and I—and I must be such a sight, this agitation eating into me so ravenously...

Zoazoa cocks her head, eyes faintly crossing, as she observes all of this. In her silence I manage to return to a state of... well, more reserved than it was, but still she remains, her lips puckered tight, her eyes thick like a layer of paste upon me. A soft breeze blows through her mouth as she slowly wrenches it open to mutter, "Oh?" and pause, and then near me again and ask, "Why?" To my blush she grimaces. "It only would make sense."

My heart squeezes.

"MA-MA-Make... Make _sense_? Sense, you spout! Sense, you nonsensical _fool_! No, not at!—No... no..." Violently does it tug as I cry, "I love _Dina,_ for goodness sake! Why would I—"

Ah.

The color drains from my face as I take in the wretch that faces me. The wretch that positively possessed Dina, the wretch that stole said love away, the wretch that I now blatantly shoved into a fault, piling grievances into her tiny, trembling hands—hands that are not even truly hers to begin with. A weak grin chips my face as my demeanor crumples and I close my eyes, pressing a palm into my forehead, curled through sections of soft white bangs.

I could have worded that much better.

A bite at my lip and I glance away shyly. The transfiguration I caused is... well, it is unappetizing to say the least. My skin, cold beneath my hand, offers no resistance when I press my fingers into it and sigh quietly. Now what? A-Apologize? And apologize for the truth, no less? She cannot deny less more than any other soul out there that palpable enough the body she chose does not suit her; Dina is much too soft and gentle for such a brittle... piece of work.

Yet here it is. And here I have. The soft intake of breath, like a punch through the chest, and it is not even that Zoazoa yells back at me, not yet, just that insignificant wince—and then my lungs crunch in _my_ chest and I feel _my_ breath squeeze and I cannot quite look, cannot quite tell, but it—but it—of _course_ it—

"Hey—Uhhhm! Heeeeey!"

A pressure as a third body presses between the writhing mass and my dull, limp self, like a little toy to be—

"S-Stop that! Hey, chill, would you? He feels bad about bringing it up, okay? Hey, uh—uggghhh—s-stop hissing, stop that..! Nnnf... Um—uh—ah! CAAAMRII? UMMMM, MISTREESSSSS? SSSS-SITUATION HEEEEREE!"

It is but little time until the sweet release drags away—oh, reluctantly—from my throat and I stay on Mier's side, my fingers tense around the tender spots now bruising rather quickly around my entire neck. I try not to think about it—about the frosty touch of claws having sapped away my strength, leaving me to shiver beside myself. How... How...

Gently I lay my head by his shoulder and glance over his comforting side to peer back at the feral creature sitting in his bed. Those dark bloodshot eyes snap into my direction, such force enamored within that I fall back from my perch and stay resting on the bed from behind my friend. I try not to think too much about what happened to my Dina. I try not to think too much about how awful this must be on her. The coiled fingers of ice, but prints around my neck, burn with such feeling that I wonder Zoazoa has not returned to finish off her strangling of me.

H-Hah.

I try not to think too much about that, either.

Words lull, a tide in and out of Mier's breath, that slowly begins pulling Zoazoa out of her state. My heart loosens its pounding stride, and I feel myself recover, and there is some salvaged piece of the lost calm that existed before. Nervous, I glance up at my friend to find him having turned his back against the wild girl. A question lies—so much as his golden eyes puzzle at it, the knot persists. A soft moan—he breaks off from his soft murmuring. "That looks... um..." Shakes his head.

"Bad?" I offer.

Slow release of air through his nose. "Yeeeah. Little bit." Wince. He drags his gaze from my own and watches the bed rustle as his called vivosaurs finally situate themselves upon the sheets; there lies my mapo queen, and beside her the putrid krona himself, though they did not come alone either, because there is Sunny, and there is Pippy, and by the foot of the bed even Gyntis and Tessa lie.

All of them. I smile slightly to myself at that.

From her place, Mistress takes in the sight of my throat and has to quickly amend this action by squeezing her scarlet orbs shut. _Aaaaaah! Ru-Ruuuupeert! That's... That's h-horrible!_

 _No, it..._ I swallow; my face muddies. _I-I will live._

 _It—It doesn't very much look it! Aaaaaaaaaaah, deaaariieeeeeee... oh, this hurts to be a part of, and my eyes are closed at that! Y-You're scaaring meeeeee!_ Her voice flourishes at an unhealthy squeak there, but she seems not to notice it.

Gyntis merely snorts. _Battle scars, huh._ His wintry pale body stiffens. _That's disgusting, Rupert. You're impossible._ He chortles lowly at that, and not in any a reassuring way. His shifting eyes keep me watching him nervously, and the soft chuckle here and here starts me—and he grins slightly at that, maw curved in the corners. Tessa shakes her thick pachy head at him, her earthy tail hitting his side.

While quiet, Sunny consumes her surroundings with a speed that sends my head reeling. _Your friend's scary, Rupert! Ugh, what did you say to ruin it?_ And Pippy, dear soul, cannot quite look at anyone, his deep violet eyes trembling.

Finally I summon a courage I did not know I had and peek back at Zoazoa. Her ugly demeanor has yet to shift; the violent eyes surge my way but I manage to hold my own; Mier taking note, he turns back, a wariness tracing him and his terse movements, one arm secured in front of me, the other in the air as if to catch any harm sent sprawling our way. Our breaths soft, we watch her quietly, those primal eyes darting back and forth as if in search of an escape, until she releases the breath hitched in her chest.

"S-Stop staring like that." A pout lists to the side of her lip. "You're making me feel... evil. A-A-And I'm not evil..."

The soft whine strokes my heart. Sometimes, oh, help me, sometimes she resembles the girl trapped within her... sometimes. But not enough for me to fully release my tension... no, it never seems to be enough these days.

A sag, and I press my head into Mier's shoulder; a silent laugh shakes his figure for a moment.

He is the one to first respond. "No. I'm sure you're not evil. I've known ancients. Heh. I should know." A pause as recollection afflicts him. "I think they're... kinda like you, like Illit. You know Illit—she's the one who you, uh, so kindly killed. It's funny. They're all... missing something. It's hard to pinpoint, exactly, but I... but I feel like there's something gone wrong with a lot of the ancients.

And of course, Zoazoa does not take nicely to being referred to as _something gone wrong_ , in any form whatsoever; but Mier is quick of wit and rejoinders easily. "Hey... hey. That's just how it is. I have things wrong with me; that's how I picked one up in the first place. And from what I've heard, your Dina must be a pretty piece of peril too. I feel like that's why we... why we end up looking for them. For... help, maybe."

I stir. As Mier lulls himself to his silence again, the room warming by the second, I press my arms around his waist tightly. There is another silent laugh. He finds me... funny, Mier.

"You know? I think everyone needs help at some point. Because people suck. I mean. Not that they all suck, more like... we're flawed, I guess. We're all a little screwed somewhere. And... well, ancients are strong, and people aren't, and... I think everyone needs help at some point, you guys seriously included—I mean, why else are you here and Illit... well, why else was I stuck like how I was for so many years, uh? Heheh... mmm, weird stuff. Yeah." As if a joke. An innocent joke, one made at innocent humor, not at the fault of another, not of the ugly, vulgar stuff making up some foul minds.

My grip goes gentle around him as he turns. The golden eyes watch me, little stars fallen from the sky he painted above, and he traces a finger just above the curving burn in my throat and smiles slightly. "Rupert, you probably need to get some rest. You look about ready to drop." And at my drooping countenance, he giggles softly. "Oh, come on, what are you! Everyone else is sleeping, if they haven't been woken up by you—or me! You can _not_ be serious about staying up even longer... Right?" A little spark enters his gaze then. A quiet one.

However he interprets what lies on my face I cannot tell, because I am not even sure at this point how much I have revealed about myself or... anything, really, but he gently pulls me off the bed and waves goodbye to Zoazoa and totes me off.

By the time the door clasps shut behind us, I blearily observe the hallway in front of me—not near the entrance but the one behind... with the rickety wooden staircase to the left, the one I think I tripped on once... or maybe twice... and I bump into Mier and I remember what forced us into that predicament in the first place and blush.

"A-Ahh... Excuse me, it..." My eyes linger at the floor. "It does not... disturb you... that I, um..." Pulling back, I try to face him honestly, though my lack of sleep has caught up with me and honesty is but a facade in my head here. "Does it disturb you that I find no romantic interest in you?"

And there comes the laugh—"PFff—Rupert... of all things!" He leaves me, smiling at some insignificant piece of ceiling for a moment. "I mean I knew from the start that you already had someone!" A motion of his foot and I glance down wildly at a cast I had completely forgot about, one with a certain girl's face painted upon it. "And besides, you're not my _type_." While jovial, something about his countenance then disturbs me.

"U-Um... S-Sorry, that is—"

"Rupert! You're fine! Wow, you're so socially impaired... haaahahaaahhh... oh, goodness..." Gently he smiles back at me again, his face warm. "I guess I haven't had much experience either, but... wow, Rupert. I'm only marginally jealous of your girlfrie—"

"Mi- _Mier!_ "

One look at my frenzied, blushing state and he cannot help himself. "Aaaahahhh! Only maaaarginally."

At this point my exasperation wears thin; I glance at him, try to formulate a response of some meaning more than my last one, and any hope falls through in my still rather half-asleep state. Oh, so much of the excitement remains, and yet so much of it has left me already...

But I cannot sleep now. Oh... not yet.

As if he sees this as well, his head tilts and he shrugs. "Well. If I put you to bed somewhere... will you actually try to sleep? Though... I mean, you don't look ready to, which is... so weird..." And he snorts at that.

"Mier, I..." My cheeks sting. "I-I am not a child to be _put to bed_... I can very well rest when I feel up to it myself."

A giggle. "Now you sound like one of those little kids who just got told off because they're up past their bedtime... Pfff, what are you?" Pause. The humor at the edge of his gaze melts away. "And why are you so stubborn about this? That's... seriously, that's pretty weird! And I doubt it's any good for you."

Ah. My voice is meek when I mumble, "You would not, um, understand if I elaborated." It is... That is... There are things I fear people simply would not take into consideration even if I told them... and I... w-well... I do not want to be told off. Is that so... wrong?

"Hey." A small smile flits along his lips. "If it's gonna bother you that much, I won't try to force you to tell me. But while I'm awake, I might as well get something done..." The golden orbs flicker toward the staircase. "You can come if you want. I just... ahh, I never finished the tops of some of the walls in there, now did I... Hard to remember leading up to Illit's... you know. _That_." A wince usurps his expression, quickly there and quickly gone.

"Yes, I... I know." And there is another one of them lying indeterminably within the body of someone just past that door at our backs. And how is one supposed to return... her? Heh... that is the problem... I do not know. "Um, if you do not mind, I..."

He turns away from me, his expression soft. "Mm-hmm. Come on, like I mind. I think you'd have figured it out by now if I did. Even if I did before, you..." The eyes grow foggy; he shakes his head, little strands of his light pink hair bouncing with him. "Heh." Soft exhale. "You know." Starts up the stairs without elaborating. Now that I think about it, Mier does not commonly explain himself, now does he... Cues, he hides them in his words, and sometimes I think he neglects any hope of comprehension entirely, and he just spews what comes to mind there and then.

But he does not... lie, either. A strange comfort. What a... strange boy.

Sunny, from near my feet, pushes at my leg. Her golden body glimmers as she gestures ahead. _Well are you going or not?_

 _It's rude to stall,_ mutters Tessa, her muddy eyes half-closed.

I cannot help myself. _And you both intend to join me, now? Heh, why is that?_ Funny vivosaurs. Though I cannot say I mind that they notice me freely now, and take the time to speak with me. Gyntis and some of the others loiter, though they eventually go off under the impression of great exhaustion. Oh, on the topic of... Do the others—Todd, Pauleen, everyone else—still rest? I cannot blame them; what occurred last night was an extension of power far pervading any probable limit. Gruesome, to say the least.

 _Hmmmn_ , my marple murmurs, _I like painting, and I like Mier. Isn't he tired too though? Like... He was very well there with the rest of you! I guess he was unconscious for a lot of it but that's partially because of how tired he was! Oh... Oh, he's a hypocrite, now is he? Paaah!_

Oh, Sunny. _You and Tessa were both not present. Nor Gyntis... nor Pippy, for that matter. So what brings you both to be so—_

Tessa injects. _Excuuuuse us for helping you stay awake with our own reserves! You'd sound ungrateful if you'd even realized, you... half-asleep ditz._

 _Pfff!_ Her marple friend giggles. _I like that! Let's call him a ditz from now on! Haaaah... though I guess that suits Dina more, since she's the actual ditz. Hnnph..._

I blush. _Let us not allow ourselves to be carried away he—_

 _Uhhhhh-huh_. Tessa rolls her eyes, shaking her muddy brown body as she steps closer to me. _Let's go already. I'm bored._

Something about the way they carry themselves has altered vastly since I last saw them. I watch, somewhat incredulous, as they poke fun into my face and go scurrying up the rickety set of stairs. When I finally start myself I trip and nearly hit the ground again, having forgotten about my foot yet again; I glance back at the hulking cast, bruised and stained in small spots, the paint chipping around the edges of my Dina's warm, gentle face.

It must be healing.

Upon entrance into the circular chamber, middle and back of the second floor, Mier has already found and begun organizing his array of paintbrushes: dirtied to cleaner—as none of them exist without at least some unruly splotch of color, and small to large, and soft to fine to thick bristles, depending on the type. What he does with this assortment and why he requires so many I cannot wrap my head around, until I glimpse the snowy outskirts he has created as a rim about the entire room—over cabinets and cupboards and closets and the floor in some spots even and, of course, the walls—backgrounded in a sturdy morning sky, houses of wood varying in similarity to his cabin sprinkled about the scene. And clouds, up above, from the top of the walls to the ceiling through, though they are hesitantly stroked in, still missing values and textures that the other piece of the walls have upon them.

The ceiling itself is smattered in these clouds... and how he intends to paint it I have not an idea toward. Blushing, I mumble, "Will you... Um, will you need assistance with that?" pointing up at the rough marks directly above my head.

To that, my friend hefts a particularly bent ladder out from his stores. "Nah. I just... need to..." Pulling at little dials on the end, slamming jagged bits of wood into place, forcing it upon the ground, declaring it stable enough to stand on. But even Mier, tall as he is, cannot quite reach the ceiling until he goes above the tallest step and situates himself—casually—like it is a chair—at the very top of the ladder.

A disturbing wobble scrabbles down the ladder. "Mi-Mier—"

"I'm fine, I'm _fiiine_!" he calls, suggesting more on the disguising of fear than the vanquishing. I continue to harbor ill feelings as that ladder bends to his feet slowly moving here and there, shifting subtly and then jerking in the opposite direction. Loud screeches utter from where it scrapes along the floorboards and nearly trips itself up alone, let alone Mier.

"Mi-Mierr! P-Please get off of that ladde—"

"Aaaah, come onnnn..." He kicks at one of the sides of it and waits for a second. Thus calling it sound, he starts to go back down to grab his paints and steps off of the top and onto the safety of the tallest step only to trip himself there and hit the ground with a _FFUMP._

"Aa-AHh—" I start after and sit on the ground by his face, breathing weakly. "Mier, are... are you..." I try to ignore the pathetic state of my voice as I reach out to gently touch his cheek. He is... well, a-as far as I can tell, he is not bleeding... whi-which is good... G-Goodness, that _scared_ me... and he hit the ground so... so loudly... I can still hear it ringing through my ears... oh, Mier, why did you... why did you think that was a good idea...

Slow... wince. "Nnf. I'm... ahh, I'm okay..." Softly Mier shifts, until he sits on the ground and can stare up at the abstract monster of a bloody ladder he went and got up onto just minutes ago. "A little bruised, but... huh." He blinks in rapid succession. "Why'd it—ohhhh. Oh..." Sigh. "Right. I keep forgetting. When, uh... when Illit was inside of me, she helped with balance and those kinds of things and... dang it, I don't know how to make a ladder... if I try, it'll probably come out like friggin _that one_..." Wince. "Again."

Oof. I gently press against him. "Ah... It must be difficult... being used to, um, mortality... again."

"Heh." He shakes his head. "Yeah. Funny, huh. Man, back before it all happened... I don't remember much about it but... but I do remember living here and being clumsy and growing older and... being slow, having breakable bones, haaah... wow."

Nervous, I suddenly ask, "Mier, um, what happened to your family?" Blush. "If you don't mind me aski—"

"Oh. No, it's fine." A grimace cups his face. "I think Illit killed them. Before she possessed me." To my soft intake, he rests a hand by my arm and smiles softly... a sorrow tracing his lip. "It... yeah, sorry, now I'm getting all... depressing. It sucked. I think she did it because she, like... needed the sanctuary or something, like... the peace. Hah. Then the peace got to be too much too soon... and well. I wasn't exactly immortal, say, but... you know." He points back at the ladder. His finger trembles almost imperceptibly. "It was enough to climb up that stupid thing without losing my balance." Soft sigh. Glassy eyes glance back as if into the past. "But... I kind of remember my parents. My... siblings. I think I had two. There were a few others in there too... grandparents, uncles, I can't remember. Heh. It was so long ago... But I—I remember seclusion. That's really it.

And then he turns. "How about you? Heheh... now you have to tell me."

"O-Of course. It is only fair, um..." My eyes slowly fall to the floor. My heart is thick and heavy in my chest. "My... father did not speak much about himself. He owns a fossil company, I know as much... and that I unintentionally began to be his greatest asset in promoting it." My gaze lowers. "My mother... died when I was very young. He, ah... My father killed her." Mier winces. "In front of my chamber. He left the body there."

Pause. I cannot go on for a moment. Mier mumbles, "Why in the... _kill_ his _wife_..? Why would... Why would he..."

I glance toward him. "He never told me. That—That sounds weak, I am sorry, but... so far as I know, he never told me." I release a breath. "I... I wonder, sometimes, now, if something had... become of her. Or him. O-Or both. I am unsure. But I remember witnessing it... heh, and I remember losing heart afterward.

"My life was... quickly saturated in fame. Because I was the prodigy. People were fascinated by the way I... controlled my vivosaurs in battle, and competition, and it seemed I could not go anywhere without meeting someone on a spectrum of adoration or... despise. It was... It was confusing. It was... heh, it was hard on me."

Mier tilts his head softly. "That... wow. I had no idea... though I think I remember you mentioning it once, back when y'all showed up... Guess that's what happens when you don't get out much, huh... Heh."

"Yes... that exactly." I nod slightly. "Either way, my father hardly saw me and I was constantly being toted from tournament to royale to... I cannot even recall how many places I went to—and the orphanage, once or twice. But... something about the children and laughter... and bonds, I am unsure, my father found that crude. So he cut me off from it. He took my vivosaurs after I found new ones at a competition. The only one I ever was allowed to keep was... Mistress, who originated as a gift from my mother."

I tilt my head back and stare at the half-painted ceiling. Layers of gray curl in hint of clouds, and one batch of lighter color suggests a sun hidden just behind. Something about it...

Soft release. "It is... complicated, yes, but in short, my childhood was a... wreck. I was... in pain much of the time. I created a wall separating myself from others in fear of being hurt more when all I wanted was... to be around people. To be..." I blush. "To be loved or... cared about—to be understood. My life continued of this sort for some time...

Mier perks at the sound of my voice shifting. "Until I..." I cannot help myself; I duck my head. "Until I met Dina."

"Oho." He giggles softly. "And then things got better?"

A little smile touches my lip as I raise my head. "Yes—but not immediately. I found her amusing at first, a trifling sort. She did not know who I was when we met—she did not... originate from a very lovable home either—and she was... so surprised when I told her. She grew so... embarrassed that I was supposedly someone important who she had never even heard of, and Torn was vulgar... and Trikko was apathetic to the whole ordeal, and..."

"Whoa." I pause, glancing back at him. "Never seen you smile like that before." He bursts off into little giggles as I turn away again, face hot. "Heheh."

"Mier, I..." The words tumble easily, yet struggle in my throat to come out. "I love her. O-Of course I smile when I... think of her. She... honestly, she saved me. I was... I was in so much... pain... before I grew to be hers, to be with her, I... ah, it was... I was not a very kind person. What vivosaurs I did have I treated poorly. And... you know about Luk." And I wonder, sometimes, what she saw in me that made her so... happy. But I am thankful of it, whatever it may be. Sweet... gentle... playful Dina, whose heart was as warm as her smile. Oh, it does me no good to think about her now...

When I glance back at him, his nose wrinkles playfully. "Mmm. Well, obviously she didn't think that way."

"A-Ah... I-I guess not."

"This isn't a guessing matter, Rupert! Heheheh..." The voice softens as with his laughter, and Mier slowly turns his head again to meet mine. With the turn of his head, I note that his earrings—the two in one ear, the third in the other—catch light and twinkle. "Oh. Is that why... you were in there with Zoazoa when I came in? You were..." His gaze wanders, eyes fogging. "You wanted to... You were thinking about _her_ , or something. Heh. Weren't you?" Oh... and what can I say, but that he is right? Of course I was. Of course I am. My memories constantly merge at that end when I chose to wake Mier and let Dina go again... s-so much as the ancient was an obstacle there I still... I still... I just...

From by our legs, Sunny and Tessa stir. Wherever they were earlier I cannot tell—though a telltale blob of sky blue paint upon the pachy's back certainly gives a hint. Their eyes, tender, bright, flit between he and I, and they pick up in recognition of what conversation exactly is going on. What kind of... things are being said.

Sad things.

Mier watches me. He must see it in my eyes. And he waits, quietly, for me to say what I must. "I think that... I think—somewhere—maybe it is stupid, but I cannot help but wonder... is she still in there somewhere? Is she... And if she is, oh, can I find her? Can I... see her again, or should I have given up months ago when we first learned that there was an ancient budding inside of her?" My voice cracks toward the end; I must stop for a moment to breathe. "You—You gave me hope. If we could... save you, then there must be a way to save her too... I-If she is still there. Though I doubt there is any good way to go about, um, killing Zoazoa. She is... frightening." Frighteningly powerful. I fear her stronger than her father.

"But I—" I go on, weakly. "I thought... we cannot fight her. We cannot force her." That wild, feral _thing_ holding Dina captive. If there is anything I know... "So maybe... I thought, maybe if I... as idiotic as it sounds, I know, but I just wonder... if I could somehow befriend her and somehow convince her... s-something... then maybe... maybe..."

It hurts. It hurts being so far away from the one I love. It hurts to feel powerless against all of the overpowered monsters tearing her apart from the inside. It hurts to do nothing.

I release a slow breath. "You said something about... needing help. Ancients... needing help. Maybe that poor girl—maybe there is something we can do for Zoazoa, when we know enough about her to see. Maybe then we can... we can..."

Eventually I close my eyes and rest my head in one of my hands.

"You miss them so... much." And the powerlessness is intoxicating. "But you are... you are unable to do anything on your own about it, because you are weak." And like a pinprick of light in a heart of darkness there is the solution. "When you find it. Some form of... of help, if I may call it so much." And the solution tastes like blood. "And what do you do... when that chance is suddenly upon you?" But blood is far better spilled than left alone if it means... if it means you are not powerless anymore.

Sigh.

"I was possessed. Twice. Did I ever tell you that? Well there it is. Not even once, though the first time was involuntary. No, I had to go searching for it again... I just wanted to save her so badly..."

When I stir, Mier has lost the warmth in his face. "What are you... talking about? Did you... You let them—"

"Yes," I whisper, "I did. I was... too hurt to think much about the price. And I... I don't know what ancients want when you need their help, I don't know what they seek in turn but I... oh, but I do know that the... bloodlust was overwhelming." I bite at my lip. "I nearly killed her in the process of trying to... to..." Oh, I lift a hand and watch it shake ever so slightly, enough that when I clench it the fingers flinch back as if in fear of me.

He glances back. "Oh." Wince. "That sucks. At least... you didn't get stuck with it for, uhhh, two thousand years, uh? Heh..." Sigh. "Sorry. That's not very funny. It just... I don't know. It sucks, is all..."

"Dina never did anything." A little smile touches my lip. "She never went out of her way to cause harm. If she did cause harm, she usually only caused harm to herself. She never... She never... did anything to deserve what happened." I start to catch little glimpses and see how... dour I am getting, how low my voice is, how broken, how depressing. I do not offer much resistance to it, though. Because... I hurt, I guess. And I am tired of hurting. Of being without the one who... matters the most to me. Of petty games around her life and mine and the wreckage caused by overpowered ancients and idiotic sentiments and fights... and hate, and...

Sick and tired.

Mier has gotten better at reading me, or perhaps I have succeeded in overthrowing my barrier. "Maybe we should stop talking about this. You look... upset. And that's no fun. Besides—you need to sleep. Seriously. I'm getting a little concerned."

"Dina suffered nightmares and strove to go with as little sleep as possible in order to fend them o—"

"Alright." His face pinches; a spark of warmth returns. "Alright, that's _great_ , but that has nothing to do with the fact that you're practically melting in place, you're so tired, so I'd suggest you—"

"But I—"

"Ruuupeert! I get it, okay?" Not loudly. Not angrily. Not haughtily. "You're upset. You wanna, like, strangle Zoazoa around the—no, I'm kidding—sorry, that was also—ah—You want your girlfriend back. You miss her. I get it." Softly. "Of course you do. It sucks. But... I mean, everyone else is still asleep, they're so freaking exhausted, and I was too until something woke me up. Your presence, maybe. I don't know. I'm not used to being around so many people. Heh. Whatever—bah—not important." He gently puts his hands on my shoulders. "You need to sleep. That's what's important."

He watches a fire in my eyes light, strengthen, and then fizzle. I nod, tilting into his chest.

"We can talk to her later. Okay? We'll all talk to her later." A soft giggle. His body shakes when he laughs. Warmly. "Heck. Even Dinu." His smile is warm. "But not right now. Everyone's tired. You're tired. You need to rest. We all need to rest. Your vivosaurs probably need to rest too. I actually can't tell since I haven't been out enough to know."

"Oh!" I start. "Aladee—"

A disgruntled look casts upon his face. "Yes, Aladee, we can talk about that issue later. You need sleep. Aladee's asleep too I bet. We can _all_ talk about Illit and Aladee and Mier and Dina and Zoazoa and Luk and, uh, your father, too. But not right now."

I sigh. With the release he grows gentle, and I finally assent.

Mier leads me out of the chamber, and down the stairs, and searches his extra bedchambers for one of those mattresses of his, and he finds one without anyone in it and he sets it out and gets the sheets and the pillows and everything else for me. Not without kindness.

"Mier," I murmur, as he passes to situate the pillow, "you are going out of your way for me. I thought you did not like that... especially if I can as easily search out these objects instead..."

He starts. I catch—oh, I catch—a red flush across his cheeks. Have I ever snared him vulnerable like this before? "You're too tired to know what you're talking about."

I snort. _Mier_.

Once he finds the chamber furnished well enough, he rests a hand upon the door frame and nearly leaves, and then turns around to face me again. "Sorry, uh, I was just... thinking about it." Golden eyes gently take me in. "Is... your father still around somewhere?"

"Ah, that is..." I try to hold his gaze. "He is. We are unsure of where. Heh..." I glance off. "Dina once... had to protect me from him. He is a... man of powerful influence, and disobeying him is not a wise idea—He never liked Dina..." Oh I am going on about—I shake my head. "Sorry. I... I am unsure where he is now, but I believe after we last saw him—which was somewhere on this island—he hinted at a search for... for ancients too."

"Hmmm..." Mier pauses, thinking. "Maybe he's... looking for help too."

I glance up at him. Only speculation, but what else do we have?

Slowly Mier turns back. "Well. I better go to bed... You sleep too, okay? Get lots of rest." There is one turn, and one small smile, and then he heads off, his bare feet soft rattles on the floorboards.

I know he does not see it, but I find myself wave to his back anyway, before I depart for the chamber he lent me.

 _Sunny_

Oh, well. They're just gonna leave like that, huh. I guess they needed it... _Do you think they're gonna come back for us?_

I glance back at Tessa, who sort of shrugs at me. _Why would I know? Maybe not. They're probably too tired to care. Rupert looked about ready to collapse, and his friend who fell off the ladder was no better._

 _Pff._ I smirk. _You mean Mier._

 _No, I mean Rupert's friend who fell off the ladder._ She scowls. _That's more fun to say. It makes him feel like a... like a failure. To me at least._

Tessa's a little out there. But still I have to ask, _Why is that important?_

 _Because it is._ And that's all the response I get.

We share a glance back up that freakishly-twisted ladder, like it was a skateboard, or maybe five, or a cabinet, or a _canoe_ before it was a ladder. And I think that's acrylic paint attaching the ends of some of the pieces together, and maybe glue... but mostly paint. Sure, layers beyond layers, but no wonder he tripped: why didn't this garbage fall apart on his way down?

Carefully my pachy friend raises her size enough to lift the ladder into her forepaws and drag it over—screeching into the ground the entire way—to a corner, where it stays... banished. _Hey, Sunny? Can you paint something for me on the ceiling?_

I sputter. _Wh-What? Tessa, what are you—_

 _What? I can't sit on your back; you're, like, Aladee-sized. And that's unfortunate. So you'll have to climb on top of me and paint for me, since I can't reach the ceiling at this height, and I'm not getting on that forsaken ladder._ Snort. _You're not horrible at it either. Well. You've had practice._

Whatever. _That was once. And things started coming out as green that were supposed to be_ yellow _, and—_

 _Just get up there and paint a good sunrise._ No, she's not listening.

 _What? Why a sunrise? Are you_ trying _to be generic? A sunrise is boring! If you're gonna yell at me to paint the ceiling, at least yell at me to paint something good! Like a... Like a—_

 _Sun...set?_

Tessa. No. _You're disappointing! Gaaaah! Rupert painted all of us; and then Mier painted him, and also Dina later; and then Mier painted this weird winter scene that he can't reach anymore cuz he doesn't have Illit to balance the ladder! Come onnnnnn, let's do something fuuuuuun!_ Like, I don't know... Camri. But, like, a disfigured Camri. That would be awesome.

Not like she hears me. I swear, her ears are inverted. All she gets are her brainwaves. _A sunset would be nice. Or a sunrise. Either way. And maybe a couple sitting at a beach and... staring into each other's eyes—but only a silhoue—_

 _GaaAAAAH! THAT'S SOOOO BOORING!_ She's not even trying to be original... this is gross... _Ugh, if you're gonna be this way, at least make me paint Pippy. He's a sweetheart. And he'd be... well, he'd be more interesting than you, you thoughtless, lovesick... pachy!_ Oof. No, that was bad. Pachy is... That's not even an insult. That's what I get for yelling the first thing off the top of my head.

I sense release. _Fine, Pippy works too. But paint him right! Don't... make him look bad!_

 _D'yoouuu still have a crush on hiiii—_

Her voice slams into me like a haughty boulder. _NO, I DON'T!_ That's a yes, if I've ever heard one. Ouch.

As I waddle over to the cabinet in search of a nice warm brown color, Tessa continues to not at all helpfully yell at me which paints I'll need. Brown. Purple. That's basically it. She keeps screaming pink, like I'll add a hint of blush to his cheeks, but I think I'm just gonna pretend that I can't hear her. It takes some dedicated fins and a few spills to get the dumb jars out of the closet and pour a suitable amount from each upon the palette, but once I do, and once I scrabble up Tessa's back, I think I'm ready.

I mean, I just realized I forgot paintbrushes but I have fins. It'll... It'll be fine. I can't even hold paintbrushes: I mean... _fins_.

As I go off to work meticulously, Tessa and I continue to shoot painless insults at each other, though sometimes I don't think she realizes she's doing it. I turn carefully and sculpt smoothly and try my best to whip that paint up on the ceiling and form the seismo as best as I can, and when I turn enough I realize that the little spot of wall that had Rupert's face painted on it hasn't been painted over.

Oh. That's pretty funny.

When I idly comment upon it, Tessa scowls. _That's disgusting._

 _What?_ I giggle. _Do you have a problem admitting when you are or aren't someone's friend or... or something? That's... bizarre._

She doesn't stop. _No, it's disgusting!_

I snort. _Alright. If you say so._

 _And I do!_

She's kinda fun to banter with, but only because so much of it flies right over her head.

I guess that's just how friendship works sometimes. Well. I don't mind.

 **Another vivosaur POV! Haha, Sunny this time. She's so positive in comparison to poor Rupert and everything that was going through his head... ;w; But hey! Mier's here to... save the day! Sorta xD**

 **Mier's cool. Hahaha.**


	28. Rt: Group Development

**Mier: ...well that last chapter got kinda sad**

 **Rupert: I-I suppose so**

 **Mier: so how about we spice things up with a happy one**

 **Rupert: ...happy?**

 **Mier: you say that like you've never been happy before**

 **Rupert: well Dina is—**

 **Mier: my gosh**

 **Todd: boy I wanna be happy**

 **Mier: yeah you get it**

 **Luk: I wouldn't mind I guess**

 **Pauleen: _you guess_**

 **Dinu: -makes unpleasant face-**

 **Mier: wow even Dinu**

 **Dinu: -sCOWL-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 28: Group Development

 _Rupert_

It takes less time than I had thought for us to regroup. Once one awakens, the others, as if attached as one great chain, stir, as the pull of the onslaught begins to wear thin. Even Dinu must have felt it, though she was not present at the battle with Illit.

By some graceful yet unspoken word, we assemble in the chamber with Mier's bed, the one Zoazoa now occupies, with the painting with the stars on the ceiling. I lean against one of the walls; Luk stands by me, his tanned body apprehensive, his hazel gaze fleeting. Behind him prowls Pauleen, whose emerald eyes suggest animosity beneath layers of her otherwise cool calm, and by her Todd stands. He and his fluffy dress block the door leading to the front of the cabin, and whether this will hinder or help us we have yet to learn. Dinu does not even care and sits by the head of the bed, her face a mixture of eerie quiet and fury.

Mier, always the bold one, proudly situates himself like a king on the end of the bed, bouncing slightly with its motions. "Huh. The way y'all hold yourselves makes it look like you're gonna, like, kill someone. I thought we were a... pretty peaceful union. Um?"

"Eh." Pauleen tosses her head; thick waves of pink hair cascade alongside her. "I diga-dunno at this point. I literally got mauled by that ancient thing—you know... the one that was _inside_ of _you—_ and it can't be helped if I diga-don't feel confident about this whole... _thing_." She leaves off with her palm smearing over in the air where our ancient-clad redhead sleeps.

His face suggests he finds this enjoyable. "Well. Before you go pointing fingers, can't forget that there's one inside of you too now. That's hypocritical." And Mier grins somewhat at that, a lopsided smirk.

"Sh-Shut up, you diga-don't know anything."

And what does Mier do but roll his eyes? "Uhhhh-huh. You're the one who pointed out that I had an anci—"

"I said shut up first, you diga-dingus!" She puffs her red cheeks at him and shakes her head heavily. If her gaze was any sharper I fear she would cut my friend.

Something about the mood causes Luk to giggle weakly. His voice sends everyone up until five other pairs of eyes pierce him. There his cheeks heat. "I dunno! D-Don't look at me like that, guys! It's just kinda funny, that's all!" He angrily crosses his arms, like that changes things. "Are we gonna wake her up or not? It's not like we have much else to try anyways..."

"Blue hair is right," mutters a thick voice by the bed. I start when I recognize it as Dinu's. "She's the problem. Now _I_ said we should _kill_ her because that's the _easiest_ way to go about this but it's—"

"But you will _not_ ," I counter breathlessly, my face hot.

A snort. She stirs to turn and drag her golden eyes across my figure. The scowl upon her lips is vile enough to leave me queasy. "Thaaaat's right." Softly. Like she dares anyone to try. "But I will _not_. Because none of you want to. Because you're all damn pansies." And she rolls her eyes there, and with another scowl she turns back toward the bed. "I'll wake her up. It's not like any of _you_ have the guts to do it."

"Heeeeeey!" Oh. There is Todd. " _I_ have the guts to do it! Let meeeeeeee—"

"Alright now we're just stalling." She plows to her feet and rests her hands upon the sides of the girl who was once my lover. "Anyways, shut up, Todd. You don't have the guts for anything." Her fingers tighten about the sleeping girl's side. "You vomited them a few months ago." Her lips smear into a dark little smirk. "Unless you already had before I met you." Oh. Oh, Dinu, that is—

Todd squeaks. "Wow! That's not nice at all! You are... You are just pulling a _Dinu_ today!"

"I'm just Dinu." Her eyes narrow. "That's all." And with that she gently squeezes and releases and there they are, the bright gasp of breath and the shining violet eyes and it looks like Dina—oh it looks like Dina—just as it did the last time, just as it always has, just for a moment I think I see her again, but then I do not. It is... I release a slow breath.

Dinu politely takes her hands away from the girl and sits herself down on the bed next to Mier. He musters a bit of a stare that she easily parries. "Yes, well I'm the one who got her here in the first place, so I get the feeling she likes me more than she likes anyone else." The eyes veer past me again. "Especially you."

I glimpse back at her, but then I look away at nothing; her eyes are too sharp for me. They remind me of Mier, back when Illit still possessed him... but I know Dinu acts completely of her own volition, and if she feels violent, then she feels violent. And I realize—ah. "Yes, I have made poor decisions in this area in the past." This is her way of violence when she cannot actually hurt anyone. Oh, Dinu. She always enjoyed fossil battles. It is no wonder... she is in such a frenzy about the recent appearances of so many ancients: creatures she has absolutely no control of, creatures she cannot even touch unless they let her first.

"Heh." While my eyes spill onto the wall, I hear her voice clearly, and that I cannot halt. "That's what you call it when you nearly get yourself killed by her... what, twice now?" Eventually I give away and grimace, to her... would I call it delight? Dinu is... Dinu is Dinu; she is right inasmuch as that.

When I look back at Todd, it is his auburn gaze that convicts me. "Heey, uhhh, how about we just not go down this path?" Uncomfortable—the eyes twitch and cannot quite focus. His hands he has folded in front of him; they squeeze each other reassuringly when there is no assistance outside of he himself. "Ummm... like, we're all friends here, riiiight? I just... I dunno. Dina. Let's get this over with."

Dinu finds this amusing. "Friends. Well, I suppose if you want to call it that." Todd twists his lips into a slight grin. "You're certainly lighthearted for a situation that's severely cut down everything you grew up on."

"I... aahhh, I thought we were getting somewhere with this!" His face hot, Todd puffs his cheeks. "I'm, uh, starting to think maybe I shouldn't have called you over here with the... with the rest of us! Cuz... you're a meanie!"

She closes her eyes... and almost looks peaceful. "Because I don't already know that." And I think at this point everyone in the chamber is growing tired of her, though from the sound of it... it appears that Dinu grew tired of herself first.

"U-Um."

Oh. What tension there was against Dinu evaporates with that one slight voice—Zoazoa has awoken. The big eyes travel carefully along each presence in the chamber. Upon each quiet recognition, there is a soft release, and another, and a great one when she experiences the sight of Dinu, until the gaze draws to a close and she whispers, "Where are your... vivosaurs? They—They aren't hiding... are they?" A sudden second of fear and her head shoots to the ceiling, her eyes so wide they go vacant. "Are they... up there..? Are they... gonna... hurt me?" One tiny, porcelain hand points to the floorboards above, as if there is space enough for one of them to launch through and attack.

But then the cabin would not be so safe; a hole in the ceiling would... surely destroy any chances of keeping the cold outdoors where it belongs. Besides, who would fit up there? Sunny..? Aladee?

The edge Dinu so carefully sharpened upon herself softens. It is... It is such a strange sight to witness. "No. They're not hiding. They're outside, fighting... each other. Being guards. Being idiots." Small nod. "You're fine."

I think Todd is the first one to react. "Whhhhhaaa—" but soon after Pauleen elbows him and he chokes on his words and swallows air and generally makes a fool of himself, nothing enough to pinpoint, nothing enough to ponder. But yes. The vivosaurs... lie outside. Where they will get into as little trouble as possible.

Some part of me fears the idea of Torn meeting Zoazoa—and perhaps some of the others too, but Torn most especially. I can easily visualize him not thinking and thus burning the body of the possessed girl only to realize moments later, oh, he just ultimately hurt Dina. He is not one to make a, ah, wise decision.

"Oh." Silence swallows up her words; those wide, wide eyes are careful searching through us again. "So what are all of you doing here? Are"—soft gasp—"are _you_ gonna hurt me?" And I start when those eyes stab straight through my figure, expecting me to make the first move, me still withstanding markings of her hands on my neck. And a slim scar by my jawline. And I doubt any of the white residues upon my hands appear very ferocious either. Ah... pathetic, if anything. I... admit to it.

And Mier does too. "Nah. We're not very... scary." Glancing nervously at Dinu after that. "At least. Not mostly." Her facial expression hardly alters, if at all. "He's not scary either." Meaning me. "He's probably the least scary out of all of us, except for maybe Todd."

Todd jumps happily at that. "Wanna be friends?" Not that he is specifically excited to befriend the girl who possessed his foster sister, but there are much worse ways to react than how he does... much worse ways that I may know something about... ah.

"Wh-Why should I be your friend?" Her face contorts, the big eyes trembling.

"Why should you... ummmm?" Shy, Todd is slow as he steps closer to the bed. He lifts one hand from their knotted bundle and waves slightly. "Be...caause... I like you!" The reaction is immediate: her face implodes with color. "Um... I... I dunno, you seem kinda cool! So I wanna... be your friend? Is... Is that uncool or... um... Yeah, so, let's be friends!" And he tries at a grin again, toying with his lip.

She glances up at him as her face tilts toward the bedsheets, shadows crossing her skin like festering wounds. "I don't... I don't..." She bites at her lip; the evident confusion pulls at my heart. Reminding me of _her_ again. Oh, dear. "D-D' _you_ just wanna be my _friend_ because she's your... ssssister?"

"Um." He blushes. "No?"

Zoazoa sucks in her cheeks. The thinness of her frame is... shockingly sharp, like she was carved out of someone else's hands, not a creation of her own. "Because that's what Dina thinks. She's in my head—she always is. And you—you're related to her." Her head thrusts from its docile position and rears back at me. "And yyyyyouu." The finger slowly raises and points. "You're so... yoouuu're so... hhhhhghhhh..."

I decide there that I think I will pretend I did not see any of that and continue a-as if she never looked my way in the first place. It has come to a point where all I feel is the mad beating heart in my chest and hear the blood pumping through my ears and see the blurry floorboards and that is all, really. A weak smile sketches across my lips and I think it stays there but I sort of lose focus of it soon after.

"Huh." Luk's voice. I perk, if but imperceptibly. "That's... That's awkward. Yeah. Uh. Very... uh... awkward. Um. Ignore him, Zoa—he's not in a position to speak at... uh, at this time. As you can... tell.

The silence drones on. Luk sputters. "He's not a bad person, alright? I, uh, I know what you're thinking: how does the crazy guy with the ugly goggles on his head know this? He could be lying! Because how would you know? But I... like... See, he might not look it, but Rupert's probably the biggest softy as of, like, ever. He's always feeling something and... and crying! He cries a _lot_ , and you know what? People who cry a lot aren't bad peopl—"

"A-Alright..." I mumble, slowly stirring and glancing back at my friend. "Luk, there is no need to go into such detai—"

"I'll say!" Oh, great, there he goes ignoring me. "There was this one time, I remember it really well, this _one_ time where he was off talking about, like, that weird thing he's always upset about... what was it? Being powerless, yeah, that; anyways he just starts crying abut how he wishes he was stronger and... man! What kind of a heartless monster would do that?" In his exasperation, he throws his hands up above his head and cries, "None! So... So you can stop being so scared of him!"

I narrow my eyes, bumping against the boy. "Luk, if you should speak about how I... ah"—I blush and go on—"then I suppose I must venture so far as to remind you of your own vulnerabilities." But he is right, and I am emotional, and it must come through my expression whatever it is I intend.

"Oh... Oh, no don't—um! Let's not, Rupert, how about we—"

"You vulgar soul, may I recall the times you would call me for no good reason only to blare your music through the speakers and yell about... ahhh, you know!" My face heats again at that... I-I am not one to speak it aloud. "Are you but a child, Luk?"

His eyes lighten as he elbows me back. "Oh! You wanna play that game? Huh?" His lip curls in a wild grin. "I must say! Are _you_ but a child, you with the first love who's made you only completely, head-over-heels, blindly into her... like... come on, that's weird!"

"That is... weird?" I ask, a little grin touching my lips. "That is your best comeback?"

"Sh-Shut up, I'm trying my best! Hnnnggg!" He pouts and sticks out his tongue at me. I glance at the ground and find myself unable to wrest the continually-growing smile from my face, so I cover it with a hand, turning back to look at a giggling Luk.

Dinu takes the moment to glower at us. "I miss when you were more... distant. Removed. Cold. It's annoying, seeing the both of you get all... sparkly." An eye twitches. "I feel out of place. Oh... right, that's because I am, and the lot of you are impossible to deal with. Ugh." The glare thickens until she tosses her head back and sighs at the ceiling.

"Hah!" chirps Todd, "Dinu's a sullen meanie!"

She flinches, a course of anger boiling her gaze. "Stop calling me that! It's... _rude_! You're one bastard of a—"

"Meaaanie meaaaaanie meaaanieeeeeeeeeee!" And he swerves when Dinu pauses to launch a fist in his direction. "Hahaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaahh! You can't stop meeeee!" He is left proudly prancing in place before he pummels against Luk and sends the both of them tumbling into a heap.

Luk disengages and bows to the boy. "Milady."

"Heey!" Todd swipes at him, and with Luk's reaction times being rather weak, he hits. "That's rude tooooo!"

"Ohhh, you're just gonna call _everything_ rude now are you?" mutters Dinu from the bed. Mier tries at a smile and gently bumps her side only for her to strike out and slash at him; I wince at the slap he receives but otherwise there is no harm done, outside of perhaps a hit to his pride.

By far, Pauleen sports the most disgruntled stare. "What the hell? I thought we were gonna take this seriously, but it looks like I'm sorely in the wrong, huh, digadig?" At the sound of her voice, Todd promptly jumps at her, and were it not for her dodge they would have both been sent sprawling; as it is Pauleen steps and sends a bare foot atop his back. "Will you _chill_?"

"Never!" he cries, springing into action but moments after, foot or no. A futile foot is all that stood in his way. The voices, while gruff or disbelieving, are not hateful, and the laughter bunches up where action occurs, and it is warm, in this room... it is very warm. Luk is the one who catches me by the shoulder and points inconspicuously at the girl sitting on the bed, her feet swinging aimlessly, her eyes trained fiercely at the ground. She is quiet, but she is smiling slightly, and that reminds me of Dina too... and I feel whatever tension which remained then evaporate, my heart a tender puddle inside of me.

I glance back at the bluenette. Ah—I note his goggles, the notorious red material he tacked those glass spheres upon after leveling them out—the ugly, toppling disease in his head—and I realize it has gone lopsided. Gently I lean near him to pull it to one side. He is quiet as I do so. It is when I turn back toward him that his somewhat-tan face lightens. "Mm. What was that for?"

"N-Nothing," I murmur. "Nothing much." When it hits me, and I wonder. "Luk... Where did those goggles come from? Why are you so... obsessed with them? Excuse me, but... you do choose to wear them so often, that I cannot help but..."

His lip quirks at the side a bit. "Oh? Heh... Nothing much, really. I made them some time ago... They're just... nice to have on. Comforting. Like, when things suck, hey, there's a constant." His voice, while chipper, lies low and soft, introspective. "My brother might've helped me make it. Might be why I like them so much. It's like... Like how I swear you're always wearing your coat, right?" And he is right; beneath a sweater there it lies, and the little crimson coattails poke out from the edges underneath, trailing my every move.

"I, ah... I do not have much of a reason for why I wear this, though. Well... um... Dina liked it. That is really it."

And there the demeanor of the girl in the back of my gaze stiffens; and I turn, and Zoazoa's feet have paused from spiraling, and her head she tilts so close to the ground that her soft, silvery-orange curls have obscured it. "Stop." Quietly. "Stop." Louder. "I-I said stop it." And everyone else has already grown so quiet that her squeak practically booms among us. "Stop... mentioning her. I-If it's not in your words, it's... it's in your stupid heads. Stupid... Stupid human heads and human memories and it's... why won't it go away? Nnnnnhhh!"

The quiet deepens. Luk stays beside me, if not shuffling closer, and from where he has fallen onto the ground again Todd grows still. Pauleen is careful when she searches the girl, and the tension that touches her stiffens her edges; Mier, so near her, is no better; a grim smile stretches his lip. And... well, Dinu hardly reacts; her golden eyes still reflect the same gold light; her short blonde strands of hair still stubbornly stick about her face. A hand that was fiddling with the edge of her parka lays still, but otherwise there is no response.

"She's just some... s-some other person! G-Get over it already..! You're... supposed to get over it... _now_..."

The whole room exhales in a rush of breath and emotion all at once.

Todd is the one to break the silence; there he is, lying on his back, staring at the starry sky on the ceiling, his face in limbo between an uncomfortable tension and childlike giddiness; the giddiness takes over. "I-I meaaaan... like, that's not how it works..?" His gaze, a sharp brown, darkens.

"And why not?" mumbles Zoazoa. "She's just... some person! Urrhhh... I'd feel better about everything if nobody _hated_ me this much about... And it's not like it's _my_ fault! It's... It's not!" Throwing a particularly blunt stare in my direction.

Dinu, while quiet, observes the frozen moment in earnest.

"But she's... uh, not." A shade of confusion passes the dress-wearing boy's face, whose layers spread out thickly about him. "She's my... sister. Sort of. And, I mean, I'm preeetty attached to her. You know." A slight edge shadows his frame.

Pauleen starts next. "Yeah. She's my friend." A blush heats her face. "Alright, I like her! So what? I... She's not a, like a bad person or anything." The emerald eyes register me. "Pff—I mean, she cries a lot too." I blush then as well.

From his spot on the bed, Mier nods, kicking his feet slightly. "I don't really know who she is, but she's friends with y'all, and I'd like to think that amounts to something, so."

"Heh." Luk doffs his head. "Yeah, same. I saw her... once. She's really innocent. It's funny." I glance at him worriedly. "Heheheh—don't look at me like that! I haven't done anything! Geeeez, you're so overprotective as it is..." Rolls his eyes... playfully elbows me.

Quiet again. There is an angry flush drawing up the face of the possessed girl.

Mier stirs again. "Hey, have you ever thought... I'm sorry to break it to you, but... Wouldn't it end this way no matter who you possessed? Even... if it took a lot of time"—glancing pointedly at myself, then—"eventually someone would care enough to do something. Right? I don't think there's anybody out there truly... like, destined to be alone. Heh." His voice grows gentle as he releases a breath, ducking his head. "I'd know."

"Bah." Pauleen snorts. "You and your... philosophy! You sure make this situation sound a lot prettier than it looks." She glances back at Zoazoa. "Though I guess you're right... diga. Hey, Todd, Rupert." He glances up at her and waves from his spot on the ground; Pauleen understandably chooses to ignore him and take in my countenance instead. "You remember Jkonna, right? That girl that visited awhile ago. I bet... I bet even she's got someone. Which is... funny. Because she's not exactly a very good person, but... I bet so." Small smile. "Right? Probably." Laugh. "Maybe."

Todd lets out a great sigh from his position on the floor. "If she was here, that'd be really insulting to hear, Pauleenie!"

"I know. That's why I diga-didn't bring up anyone in the room." She teasingly kicks at him and Todd squirms to avoid it... which he does not.

"I'd say that's smart... but you're an idiot!" And he giggles at that.

Pauleen takes no offense. "Your comebacks are putrid, Todd."

And then someone stifles a gasp and someone else turns and I catch a strange, twisting little glint in the eye of our possessed friend. One hand cups her own chin and she grins slightly. "So... if I left her alone... and went for someone else... you wouldn't care?"

"Um! That's... That's not exactly what we're going for!" Luk steps in front of me; something in the mix of his gaze suggests I do not try to get into this conversation. And... I think he is right. "Pauleen _just_ said that even someone like that crazy what's-her-name that she knew I guess probably has, I don't know, friends, family, uh, love interests, that stuff. You can't... You can't just take someone's—um." In a sudden burst of realization he nips his lip. "You probably shouldn't switch bodies like that?" When he turns back, release is evident in his gaze.

He almost... ah. What a treacherous game we play... it is only now that it occurs to me, oh, just how easy it would be to speak wrong and cause this entire cabin to crumple around us. And I wonder, my heart squeezing in my chest, if it was a wise idea to let her into our reserves, where she could so easily cause mass destruction... I-I am not the only one in this chamber who watched someone as feral as Illit be stripped to dissipated light by the hands of this girl. I have already hurt myself—yes—twice—in the attempt of befriending her. Heh. It seems I never learn.

While her head tilts to accommodate the question left in the gap Luk made, Zoazoa closes her eyes and twists her lip slightly for another reason. "That's not true. You're all... liars." O-Oh? And what is it now that forms us into the monsters you so define?

"Um... we're not?" Pauleen scowls. "I-I mean it. I've seen it in action. You can stop... trying to diga-debunk ever single thing we say. We're just trying to help." She clasps her hands together, bangs shadowing over a convoluted expression.

"Yeah. You are." Then Zoazoa raises her head and pulls herself off to the very edge of the bed, as close as she is willing to get to shove her face into that of Pauleen's, and there is still some amount of distance between them. " _I_ never knew _anyone_ like that when _I_ still had a body... the only person I _thought_ cared about me ended up killing me. S-So." Like a little punk, she folds her arms in front of her body and tries to tighten her face, to make it sour. The child she is pokes through even so, a desperate innocence, those big eyes, a trembling lip.

Soft laughter from the floor. When Todd sits up, he effectively cuts off the murderous gaze directed at Pauleen and butts his head against the one with it. "OOP! OW! OOPSIES!" And then he goes back to the floor and, whimpering, clasps his head in his hands. "That was a bad idea, hahaaah... aah, that's not what I meant to saaaay..." Shakes his head. Forces his lips to stop quivering. "We can be your friends then! Right? There you go! Now it's not just you! Now there's lotsa people... and so you're not alone now!"

She eyes Todd with such a terrifyingly brooding face that I doubt she heard any of it but for the crunch of their heads meeting. No, it matters not if the wound is slight and hardly existent, even by now. "I don't like you. They said—They said you're nice, but I don't like you." And then I realize... it is like as Mier said, just suddenly it comes to me and it is like he told me: what is it that Zoazoa... needs help with?

Her father killed her. I remember reading that on ancient texts some time ago—Scatterly showed them to us, Dinu's and my grandfather. And apparently she had no loved ones either of any kind. People... avoided her. Because she was _his_ daughter... and who can say that they were wrong? She strikes out in hurtful words and her nails alone have cut me multiple times; she is simply... unpleasant to be around. And she dislikes Todd. I know he can be a bother and his jokes are tiring but... he is _Todd_ , surely the most positive creature I have ever met.

But this could also be due to the fact that others avoided her for the majority of her life.

My gaze follows up to Mier, who sucks in his cheeks and shakes his head slightly. Dinu, by his side, gently nudges the possessed girl on her other side. "You don't have to talk like that to him. Todd's not a bad person or anything." A lip twists, though not unkindly. "I mean, he's an idiot, but he means well."

"Heh... Yeah, I-I do... um..." His face has gone paler with the words Zoazoa threw at him. "Um... s-sorry, I just... you sound lonely. And sad, and stuff. And, um, maybe you don't like people pointing that out, but... but you do. And it makes me want you to... to feel better about things, since—" He pauses. The eyes widen slightly but he shakes his head again, curls bouncing hurriedly about him. "S-Sorry. Since you sound lonely and all. I... I like helping lonely people! Yeah!"

 _Since you remind me of Dina. Since Dina lives inside of you and I don't want you to hurt her._

He was so close. Oh, Todd...

The eyes, sharp and angular in her head, soft and gentle in her predecessor's, shift toward him in a fashion so fast it is unnerving. "I just want to live. That's all I wanna do. Is live. I-I never lived before. Don't... Don't I deserve that?"

Luk glances at her quietly. And then back at me, and toward Todd, who begins nodding toward her. He releases a breath, his eyes toward the ceiling, lifting a hand to motion me nearer. When I step, he leans his head toward mine and mutters, "I don't think we can do this for much longer. It's... freaking me out, on... an emotional level, sure, but... I just feel like something in general's gone totally wrong when I'm around her. I think I'll lose my cool if she keeps... _doing_ this..." And the hazel eyes are dim.

Soft sigh. "Sorry. I just... I can't do this for much longer. I'm worried about what's gonna happen to us."

I nod gently. "I... I understand." He is right, of course. An enigma so violent as Zoazoa is... quite a fright to be around for any amount of time. "I-I will do my best." I am not sure with what but I... but I will t-try to.

"Heh. Thanks." His grin goes sidelong. "Not that your best is all that good." I... I decide not to confront that and turn back toward the girl, transfixed by whatever it is Todd feeds her off of now.

"...so I get that you, uh, wanna live... I promise, but, um... how do I... Aahh..." Nervous, Todd glances up at the blonde beside Zoazoa, his face betraying his fear of saying the wrong thing.

So Dinu stirs again, not without a reluctant scowl. "Hey, if you want to 'live', you're not doing it very well." Zoazoa starts, eyes widening. "Don't give me that. You know you're not. All you've been up to is running around like this rampant crazy and attacking ancients at random. That's not... that's not hardly anything I know of but crazy." She shrugs. "Don't give me _that_. I'm going off of what I know, and what you don't."

"It's mean of you to go yelling like that at me..."

A thin grin stretches her lips. "I'm not yelling, so you can very well shut up. Gosh. We're just trying to help, you... idiot." Somehow, she takes no offense from the insult when Dinu utters it, glancing back up at the golden-eyed girl as if she surmounts on a pedestal and not slouches on a bed.

I think she likes Dinu—but that is not what surprises me so much as in comparison to the liking Dinu has taken to her. Oh, was it but days, weeks ago when she stormed into this cabin at such a rampage, my foot still a broken mess and Mier still possessed and she yelled at all of us that _we_ were idiots because we refused to harm the ancient inside of Dina... which would thus kill her. And now look.

But... does that mean Dinu intends to... to keep her there? Does Dinu care about the live that deserves to live or the one that stole it out of her hands more? And I... I am afraid I do not know that. And even so, how... how would we take Zoazoa away from what she... what she took?

What I do know is that at the present time she enjoys the presence of the ancient... and that I cannot disturb, nor would I wish to. I just... I worry. I worry about what is to come of us and what will happen next and all of the unknowns in our situation and I am terrified for what is happening to my Dina and where this all leaves her. And I know maybe I should not worry so much about the girl not here but instead the one currently present but I... but I am futile in this way.

"Well." Dinu lifts herself and straightens her posture. "If we keep talking about this I doubt we'll get anywhere. We should... do something. As an example." Her fingers tighten around one of Zoazoa's arms. "Yeah."

Her new friend lifts her gaze and nervously takes her in. "Like... Like what example?"

"I don't know. We could make snowballs on the roof and then throw them at the vivosaurs."

Todd jolts. "Diii—"

"Heh." Her lip curls into a slim smile. "I'm joking." Joking? Dinu? "Come on. I'll figure something out. Show you what's what." Smirk. "Don't worry about getting past the vivosaurs. Torn wouldn't dare cross me." And... so easily does she lead the thin, stiff, nervous Zoazoa out from the chamber and out toward the front door and clasps it shut behind them, a soft _thump_ all that remains of their presence, until that as well dies, and they are gone.

Luk's reaction is immediate. "Ohhh, bless her twisted soul." He leans against the wall only to slide down, down and land on the floor, his head tilted toward the ceiling, relief oozing out of him. "That was... absolutely terrible. _Bless_ her soul." His breaths grow deeper and softer, like he falls into sleep... but he does not, at least yet.

"Heh! I knooow! I was so freaked out about it!" Todd scoots onto the bed and jumps on it slightly, his figure twitching with energy. "Man, I kept thinking, this is it, this is when I screw up and say something bad! This is when _stuff_ goes _down_! You guys saw when I almost brought up Dina again, right? Gaaaah! That would've been so baaaaaad... aaaaaah..." He continues bouncing, his eyes bright and cheery.

I stir, smiling weakly. "No, Todd. I get the feeling that if anyone made an error she would simply go after me again."

"Oh. Ohhhhh..." His eyes linger toward my neck, where her imprint lies in places. "She did that? Yeeeek! Meanie girl! Scary girl!"

"Mmm..." Pauleen situates herself on the bed beside him and bounces somewhat too, though not as much as Todd does. "That's pretty spooky. Oni couldn't diga-do hardly as much as her in that one fight with Illit... eeeehhg, how the hell are we supposed to _beat_ her? Like... diga-do we give up now and call it quits? I'm sorry, but... that was nasty. No fun. Ullh." Shakes her head, shivering.

Mier lifts from the bed to stand by me. His eyes shine, though his face lies in a twisted mass of shadow and warmth. "Aaaah... that's where the whole help thing came from. I mean, obviously we can't beat her, but if we get her to... I dunno, to feel like she's lived or... something, whatever it is she's looking for, then she might be on her merry way. This is all speculation, but it's the best we've got, so." He shrugs.

"Gaah." Luk stirs enough to bat a hand in the general direction of the pinkette. "Aren't any of you exhausted? I'm exhausted. Her weird anger problem got me all weird and angry and... and it was just no fun. Ulhh. I'm... I'm done with her, hahh... That sucked." The hand turns course to rest by me, netting my cast. "C'mon. Rupert, you're with me..." Scooting slightly closer to me.

"Pff. Luk..." I gently kick his hand away. "Although she did make me feel rather uncomfortable, I am not... particularly bothered by it. She just... She is lonely. That is all. Yes? But maybe if... she is not lonely... then maybe... things can change. Heh." I cannot help it.

"Well if you're talking about making people _not_ lonely, stop pushin' me awaaaayy..." Another hand waggles off in my general direction. A smile splits across my face as I dodge that one too and bump into Mier, who just giggles at the sight of it.

Suddenly his eyes light. "Hey! Who's in the mood for another story? I am, I totally am! Stories are fun and crazy possessed girl's obviously not, and I'm pretty good at them if I do say so myself!"

Todd bounces much harder on the bed. "Ooh, ooh, ooooooh! Do it! Dooo iiiit! But"—he sputters—"but no more volcanoes where everyone dies, that was no fun!"

"Pfff... do you even know why I told that story?" Our silence is answer enough. "Wow! I chose the wrong people to let into my cabin!" He giggles. "I told it because I was trying to _warn_ you about Illit! See, Mier was supposed to go crazy and be the reason everyone died, and that was supposed to hint at—whatever, it went over your heads, so I guess it doesn't even matter."

"Oh—Ohhhhhhh!" Pauleen starts. "No wonder you got all cocky with me when I felt like altering the ending! Pffff, nice one, Pauleen!" She rests her head in a hand and laughs quietly, her emerald eyes a nostalgic mix of regret and mirth... but mostly mirth.

He laughs again, waving her off. "There you go! The bane of my existence! Aahh, whatever, it was okay in the end. So... now that I don't have any _deep truths_ to toss at y'all, anyone got a suggestion? I'm with Todd, honestly, so long as it's not anything with horror and death. That's no fun."

"Ooooooooh!" If it possible, I think he bounces harder. Pauleen shoves him hard enough to send him reeling off the edge of the bed. "Ow! Pauleeenieeeeee! I just wanted to saaay that... let's do a rooomaaance comeedyyyyyyyy! Y'knooowwwwwww~"

I flush. Mier glances at me and his face breaks out into a big grin. "But Rupert's already dating someone, and they're not even here." Pause. "Well I could always go ge—"

"Nooooooooo!" Todd launches himself from the edge of the bed and slams himself and Mier to the ground. "Don't dooo thaaaaaaaaaat! Let Dinu be a weirdo and do her weird Dinu thing in... in peace! I don't wanna see her right nowwwwww..."

"Guys, we could always just make it up as we go and put random people together." Luk, from his heavily-slouched position against the wall. "That's always fun. Doesn't have to go off of reality. Besides, I think Rupert hears his girlfriend's name in his head more than enough times without the help of the outside world. So..." He nods back off again.

Pauleen snorts. "Uhh, Luk, you diga-don't look very comfortable over there. You wanna—"

"Naah, I'm fine."

"Luk, you're _obviously no—_ "

"No. I'm fine." Great yawn. "You don't understand."

She closes her eyes, a scowl digging into her face. "Alright. Be that way, but it's you who diga-decided to put it onto yourself." He just signals her a little wave from his place, and I think this somehow angers her even more.

Mier glances at Pauleen... and then his eyes drag back to Luk. He stops. A hand he raises, and his eyes set alight. "Aha! There's the first problem! Huuhuu... so anyways, our setting... will be... Hmmmm, how about the whatsits you guys all came from—yeah, the place with the three islands and the... weird, tournament thing. The one y'all met in."

Luk mutters, "I wasn't in it," but nobody is listening to him.

"Anyways." Luk is left without being acknowledged for, and Mier goes on. Noting it, Luk pulls his ugly handmade goggles from the top of his head and onto his half-closed eyes. "Pff. Luk, the bad boy"—he stirs, smirks, and drifts off again—"was starting to develop feelings for someone... but he didn't even know her name! He just... oh, the way she looked and carried herself, the weird... grass skirt thing he was totally into, the long pink hair... it was perfect. It just was. Don't question it." Mier takes a moment to push Todd. "I said don't.

There is a timely pause which Todd, for once, does not break. "Anyways, they had that whole tournament thingy going on, which was cool, because if Luk and Pauleen were both _really_ good fighters, then they'd eventually be pitted against each other and meet an all that. Only problem was that Luk sucked at getting people to like him and they weren't even staying on the same island, so that was basically their only chance of meeting."

"So when do I sho—"

"Shut up, Todd, and it'll happen sooner." Our freckled friend closes his mouth, his cheeks rosy.

"But... they didn't account for Rupert." My heart jolts. So he is adding that in. "See... Rupert was a prodigy, and Rupert was the bestest of the bestest of the best. That basically translates to _nobody beats him_ from the language of Awesome." Someone grimaces, laughing weakly. I think it is Pauleen. "So if Rupert got in a fight with either of them, well, it was all over, Luk would never meet the girl of his dreams and never, _ever_ , be saved from his bad boy problems that made him become a bad boy in the first place. Cuz, y'know, every single bad boy in existence always has a sad, painful backstory."

Luk giggles, murmuring, "Especially me, because I've had six girlfriends in the past... and none of them worked out. Oh help my notorious soul."

"Pffff, yes." Mier grows giddy at this. "All six of them were siblings too. He just couldn't stop trying. Anyways they broke his heart and now he's a bad boy and _Pauleen_ is the _only person_ who can save him. But Rupert. Anyways Todd was also there but Todd is the actual worst fossil fighter in existence so there wasn't much about him you had to be afraid of. He had a few celebrity crushes and this nasty habit of falling in love with people he didn't know, but otherwise he didn't contribute much."

And what else is he going to say? "Awww, that's awful!"

Mier giggles. "Don't worry. You'll still get an important role, if I remember to put one in." For a moment there Todd's face lifts... and then he sneers back at the pinkette teasingly. "Who else? Oh yeah. Mier. Me. Right. Mier. Uhh... he's just a spectator. He's secretly worse than even Todd at fossil fighting but he loves vivosaurs and all that jazz, so he watches battles and pretends he's formidable around people but comes up with random excuses when they ask to battle him. Y'know. Lame."

Pauleen starts. "S-Stop changing the tenses! That's really screwing with me!"

"So... I think that's everyone." Mier winks in her general direction but otherwise ignores her. "Anyways, what happens first? Oh, Luk's heart is broken for the... seventh—no, eighth time! Eight because it was broken by his parents who... kicked him out of the house and... broke it first. Yeah. He's in the first round against Pauleen and it looks too good to be true and it _is_ because he loses _horribly_ to this feral girl and in the end doesn't even find the courage to talk to her! It's just... awful! What else? Mier isn't in the first round because spectator, but he doesn't really do anything important. Rupert fights some random person. Uh. Wins, of course. Todd somehow makes it through, we're not sure how but he does."

There is soft cheering from the boy in question.

"Oh, but he loses to Pauleen in the second round. Heh. More on that later."

There is something about Mier that alters as he tells a story; his hands gradually grow more animated, his eyes gradually grow more bright; his voice softer, and yet louder—he projects; his movements more carefully predicted as he gently clasps a hand to my shoulder. "Anyways. Let's look at Rupert. He seems to be a pretty decent guy on the outside... but on the inside he's secretly a girl."

I—" _Mier—_ "

"Heeey, you can't argue!" Between his laughter, he pats my arm. "You can't! This is all made up and on the spot!"

"But I am not a—"

He sticks out his tongue, giggling. "Too laaate! Now you are!" And with a flourish he turns, grasping and squeezing my hand before releasing and glancing curiously toward Pauleen. "Y'know. There's a reason she's so feisty and completely unresponsive to everything Luk tries, even in his terrified introvert state. But he can't figure it out, and he certainly doesn't after just one round... but after the second, with lovesick Todd chasing after her and being a complete dingus and everything, it grows obvious that there's _something_ about this girl, something _weird_." He lowers his voice to a soft gasp. "Maybe she's not interested in boys."

"Uhhh... oh no?" suggests Luk.

"Oh no indeed! Luk's heart is broken, Todd's is more or less broken, and what do they do but suffer together on their, uh, loss? They say something about people who feel better after suffering together, I dunno. Because they lose so quickly, they're stuck as spectators... and who else tries to talk himself up around them but _Mier_ , the lonely dweeb who actually can't win a fossil battle to save his life?"

"Pfffff..." Pauleen rolls her eyes. "Lonely diga- _dweeb..._ "

Mier pauses to offer a short glance at Luk. "Ah. I just realized there's five people. Gaaaah, maybe I should create a sixth..."

"Dina?" I offer.

"No," he mutters, giggling. "No, Rupert. Stop." He glances up at the ceiling with a bout of curiosity. "I could add in Dinu, or I could also leave it at five. Eeehh, I don't feel like adding in Dinu and she's the only other person we all know, other than, _uh_ , so I guess it'll stay at five. Ah well. Whatever. Anyways Mier tries to look good to Todd and Luk but Todd and Luk are these crazy rascal boys who don't let you live down anything—especially good old _bad boy Luk_ over in the corner there—so he gets found out pretty quickly... and they're like, man, why'd you lie? And it's revealed that Mier is actually Pauleen's younger brother who just wants to find her and... be happy again, be siblings, have a family... only she doesn't remember him!"

Pauleen takes a moment to lift her head and glare at our storyteller. "Mier... that diga-doesn't happen. What the hell kinda person _forgets_ about having a sibling? You diga-don't diga-do that! Geez, if _I_ had a sibling, I'd never forget about them! I'd be... so protective over them and everything!"

He giggles. "Alright. Okay. I'm pretty sure that could happen but okay." He pauses to think. "Uhhh... how about... if, like, their parents died when they were little, Mier got super upset over it, went crazy, Pauleen eventually forgot about him because he was taken out of her life because, y'know, _crazy_... that could happen. That could totally happen."

"It just diga-doesn't! Mier, whatever! You diga-don't need a diga-damn reason if they're gonna be that bad, just pretend you have one and we diga-don't need to bring it up again. It's too lame."

"Ouch. Alright. Heheh." He turns back toward me. "Rupert never loses, and neither does Pauleen, since they're destined to meet and all. Eventually they have this, like, _final four_ banquet or something stupid like that, and they do have their whole destined to meet moment or whatever... though it's not much. Rupert looks like a boy... or a girl, hard to tell. She's still closeted about the whole thing. Her dad forced her to pretend she was a boy. I dunno." I have to close my eyes and hide my head with one of my hands at this part. It is... too much to be a part of. "Anyways Mier figures it out and Rupert, uh, after talking with Pauleen, like, hardcore crushes on her, because _everyone_ loves Pauleen, and then that crush becomes real feelings and stuff... but it's not until Rupert can accept who he—er—she is and tell Pauleen everything that it can all come together, uhhh, beautifully! And, uh... hmmm, the winner of the championship is Dina. There's your reference, Rupert. There you go."

"They all lose to Dina?" I mumble.

"Yep. Everyone loses to Dina." He giggles. "Anyways, what's left... oh, Todd, here's your reference—you and Luk get... together. Because... reasons. There's your big role. There you go."

He has to stop and laugh. "Thaaanks?"

Pauleen closes her eyes, grinning slightly. "That ending was horrible."

"Heey, I didn't know how to end it without rushing a little. Cuz, like, there wasn't much left."

"Heh. Then diga-describe a kiss scene at the end; it's a rom-com, you diga-dolt!"

Words cannot describe the face Mier makes to show how uncomfortable this makes him. "Naaaah, I think I'm gooood. It'd be different if it was someone I didn't know, but... well, it's not, so maybe next time."

"I'll diga-do it for—"

"How about we don't!" he squeaks, giggling weakly. "How about we just don't."

I glance at Luk and only to notice that he has fallen asleep. W-Well, that is fine. "I, um... I am with Mier here. I would... I would rather not know what it is like for myself—as a... as a female—to kiss someone... like Pauleen."

"Ooooof! Rupert, ow!" Pauleen, face stricken, places a hand against her heart. "That hurt!" Her grin gives her away. When she glances over at Todd, who has been strangely unresponsive, and he is Todd, she gently waves her hand in front of his face. "Umm... hey, buddy? You in there?"

"Heehh?" Todd shakes his head, eyes in a daze. "What? I'm... I'm in there!"

"What are you thinking about?"

He giggles, head tilted back; then he crashes into the window. "Oop! I'm... thinnnkin' abouuuut what it'd beee liiike if I daated Luuukkk!"

"Um. Todd. It's all a joke. You diga-do realize that."

He waves her off, cheeks reddening. "I knowwww... but I just wonder..."

She decides to leave it at that.

Mier, curious, asks something softly to Pauleen that I miss, and they go on, their words a haze. Left to my own devices... I wonder, then, if these moments need to happen. Todd giggling, his smile full flourish, Mier's countenance lighter tan I have seen it for some time, and even Pauleen playfully bantering, there is... there is a sort of happiness in the air that I think some of them may not have felt for some time, especially when compared to the sheer volume of fear and... and pain that have been seeking us out, grasping us by the legs... dragging us into oblivion.

Happiness. Smiling. Voices... that are soft, and full of wonder, and warmth. A contentedness about one's life.

Heh. There is nothing wrong with that...

I think of Zoazoa, and I wonder if that is what she so searches for. But I wonder if... she is susceptible to find it in the state she is in. I fear she is... too broken, to find it. I fear brokenness like I fear desolation, loss, emptiness...

But then there is hope. I like to think hope is important too.

 **Heh... certainly a different chapter xD  
There was a serious need for one with everyone goofing off, haha, like the mood's getting heavier as the climax approaches, and it's seriously getting close! Stuff's about to go off in the next few chapters, heheh...**


	29. Ja: Complex Detour

**Haha, Zoazoa's... different, isn't she? I have some trouble trying to capture her and lead the plot in the right direction at the same time but I think I'm getting the hang of it... xD Haha, I say that but she doesn't even show up in this chapter, so I guess it doesn't matter right now. She's such a different character though! Like, almost everyone knew Dina (but Mier) but now no Dina, she's possessed! And Dinu's getting attached to the possessor too xD**

 **I like that, Dinu needs some love**

 **Jkonna: no, _I_ need some love**

 **Dino: … I'm right here**

 **Jkonna: they kept jabbing at me in that last chapter, I caught everything and now I'm like why**

 **Dino: they jabbed at me too, I mean guess who forgot their sister**

 **Jkonna: ...Pauleen**

 **Dino: …well not that she knows**

 **Jkonna: shut up**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 29: Complex Detour

 _Jkonna_

"Dino," I mutter, for what must be the, like, hundredth time, "this isn't working. I mean..." My breath goes out in a hiss. "Come on! Isn't it obvious, digadig? You can't just _run away_ from the turd in your life! Especially freaking fast turd! It diga-doesn't work that way, and you should know that best! Wh-Why won't you listen to me?" His eyes, however much they lay on me, keep diga-darting off, like he can't quite put his finger on it but he diga-doesn't trust me. Which is... stupid. Of course he can trust me. He should know by now out of everything we've gone through that we can only run from these stupid, stupid ancients for so long.

Harei switched to diga-Droplet. Diga-Droplet switched to Bliss. Bliss switched to diga-Droplet. Diga-Droplet switched to Harei. Land, water, land, water, land. We're pretty much stretching everyone's reserves thin here, and that's not even bringing up the fact that Dino's poor krona can't get a break until we're on land again, because, let's be honest here, my futabi just won't cut it here.

But it's not like running will cut it either.

"You can't be afraid of confrontation!" Crossing my arms—again—I thrust my head and send a wave of red-and-orange hair up my shoulder. "You know this! You're a freaking fossil fighter, for goodn—uugghh! Ancients aren't impossible; we've fought them before and we've scared them off if not, like, beat them entirely! Thomas! Iggy! We have backup! We have a core squad to... Dino, we can diga-do this if you'd just freaking try!"

Yeah, they're terrifying. And yeah, they're unpleasant. But I'm not one to flee. I'd rather punch fear in the face than let it punch me and just, like, get out of the way or something. That simply diga-doesn't take care of it.

Not like Dino admits to that, though. _Ugh._ Why'd he have to get so... passive? Making me diga-do everything but then diga-doesn't let me diga-do it either.

At this point I'm probably background noise. Once I shook off my fear, this is all I've been telling him since, so I guess it makes sense he'd start ignoring me. Our world, great loafs of earth surrounded in a bowl of water blurs on by at whipping speeds as Harei launches herself off another cliff, her golden scales capturing a swatch of sunlight and rippling with her muscles. Another hard landing and she kicks off again, thick pants between words, and she just got here. This land is so... bumpy. I'd hardly be able to tell, what with the speed, diga-did Harei not have to stop and diga-dash around or charge up and over so much of it. Us, her baggage, shiver on each landing, her vibrations latching onto our small, feeble bodies.

I wait a few seconds before I start up again. Our golden ride's path grows gentler, and then I'm ready. "Dino! Diga-Do you even listen to me? This is important! I'm telling you, we have to diga-do something! Ancients! Vivosaurs! We have the manpower to diga-do it and we're not gonna friggin _get_ anywhere if we let these diga-dumb monsters lead us over wherever we let them!

Quiet. I swallow. "You won't listen. I'm trying to help us, Dino. A-All of us! Why won't you diga-do anything?"

Raptin's pretty quiet too. He's probably the most annoyed with me, but I can't tell, since Dino usually diga-doesn't bother with me and Raptin's the only other person here, but he's also the one who gives me ugly stares in the attempt of tripping me up and killing my voice. Though they diga-don't usually work, so I'm not sure why he keeps trying. I can also ignore others, y'know.

Soft, soft panting overflows like a river to our senses. Oh, poor Harei... she can't go on like this too much longer; her breath's diga-dissolving faster and harder with each stupid hill she has to climb. W-We might as well stop anyways; so big and hulking as the ancients are, and as much faster as we are in comparison to them, vivosaurs aren't invincible. Harei's stamina must be practically shot by now. Bliss can hold out longer, but she's gone quiet in her medal too, my poor acro.

"Dino. S-Seriously. You hear her. We can't go on like this. Bliss is just about the same, and diga-Droplet's a lot stronger than the both of them but that diga-doesn't mean she's in much better shape, especially since she diga-doesn't even have someone to switch with." I glance up, my hair whipping about me; these stupid hills have no freaking ending in sight, I swear.

Which is fine. The faster Harei peters out and the faster Dino stops acting like an idiot.

A wet gasp; seriously, his ourano can't hold out all that much longer. Now, she's gonna _say_ that she can, blind pushover she is, and pretend that she's got the strength in her to continue until eternity, but her body gives her away, and—and—oh thank goodness he's actually looking at me now.

Oh. His eyes are diga-dark. Like... freakishly diga-dark. Small smile on his lips. "We can't last forever, Jkonna. E-Either way. I'm sorry, but I—"

"S-Stop that," I mumble, "stop apologizing." He's too freaking weak. I know, I get it, that's why I'm the strong one who gets away with screaming, but... he's still too freaking weak. It's getting on my nerves. I really care about him, but he... Diga-Dang it, Dino.

"But I am sorry." Quietly. His eyes veer past mine again and I feel a low, unearthly growl in my throat. "I don't want to risk Thomas and Iggy now, and they don't think it'd be a good idea if we wasted their energy on a bunch of random ancients either. What if there's more? What if there's—"

"Three! Four!" My hand splays off to the side and forms a fist in the general diga-direction of the colorful mob following us; I feel a knuckle hit flesh and wince, flinching back from Raptin's side and biting my tongue. "F-Four! Isn't that enough? Get rid of them now and we-we'll be fine! These might be the _last four_ we'll _ever_ see! Look at this gigantic ocean! It's literally just us, Dino! You're hurting Harei and hurting Bliss and hurting freaking diga-Droplet by diga-doing this! There's such an easier way to—"

Cheeks pale, he whispers in a voice weak enough to diga-destroy any of the thoughts left in my head. "We don't know what we're getting into here. So far as we know, there's at least one other ancient, and that's the one stuck with my sister. We don't know how strong they might be. And I mean... she can't be that much further away, can she? It's not like they're forcing us to turn around or anything." Something about the softness, about the weakness in his figure forms a fist around my heart, and my chest smolders into a diga-dull throbbing.

"But... no! Di-Dino! If we diga-don't diga-do something now, there won't be a later!" D-Diga-Dang it, just understand already, would you? Stop looking on the other side of things. I-I diga-don't want you to be on the other side, I want you on _my_ side, on the _same_ side as me. Wh-Why can't we just get this over with? Why can't you understand me?

It's like the words swoop right over his head. A melancholy sifts into his gaze. "Jkonna. Please listen. I'm telling you why we can't act rashl—"

"Because taxing your ourano isn't acting rashly! Because forcing her to run when she can't run anymore isn't acting rashly!"

"It's"—he splutters—"it's not! Jkonna! I'm trying to think safely!"

My face hardens; I feel a heat rising in my throat. "Well... well it's..." My voice goes shrill. "IT'S NOT FOR HAREI, IS IT?"

He lurches back. "J-Jko—"

"WE NEED TO GET THIS OVER WITH NOW, YOU IDIOT! I—UUGHH! STOP BEING SO STUPID AND LISTEN TO _ME_!"

The next few seconds go by in a sickening blur; my forehead swoons and my knuckles crack as my fingers twist and my nails meet palm and break flesh and the flat of a hand slams my shoulder and before I know it my hair, in its tangled mass, goes sprawling up and around me and the wind's taken it captive but it can't hold me, I'm too heavy, I'm sinking, I'm—I'm—

falling.

An _oooomph_ spills out of my body, and it spreads out from the small of my back as I hit—as I hit warmth and it's... and it's not the hard-packed, lifeless earth or the wet sploosh of a puddle... I... I think it's Bomba. Oh, bless Bomba. She must have the best instinct out of everyone and thank goodness for that, as... crazy as she is. I gently turn—an arm cracking a little ferociously as I diga-do—but I diga-don't think it's broken—no, it's just... _sore—_ and the world tips as I stand and grasp her warm, fiery head, diga-dappled in tribal feathers, my arms big and wide around her.

 _Th-Thanks,_ I mumble into her mane.

 _I'm good at this,_ she assures me, her tone... soft. Tired. Just like the others. _So now what?_

Oh, uh. So much as I turn, the light hits this area wrong, I think there's a mountain in the way, s-so much shadow, and my head's splitting a little too much for me to get a good look at it. Not much light, though. Hardly any light. Too earthy, too... clammy on my skin, it almost feels diga-drenched in rain, but it's just so chilly in here. I squeeze my u-raptor tighter, my fingers thick in her fuzzy feather mane.

 _You sound scaaaaared._

I close my eyes, nuzzling my head into her side. _That's because I sort of am, genius._ And she giggles at that, because it's not every diga-day Bomba gets called a genius. Not that she is one.

As I cool, the whole situation I've gotten myself into starts to sink in a little more, and my heart grows a little colder and a little number in my chest. My breaths come out white, faster and faster and faster until Bomba awkwardly reminds me to chill before I _ooze out my life essence_ , whatever that means, and I diga-duck my head and my fingers kinda twitch funny after that. I pull them back from her fluffy head and glance over their faint little forms, and steadily they ease.

 _Well_. I pat her red-scaled back. _Now what? Oh wait, you already asked me that. Diga—...Gaaaah._ I swallow, my mouth starting to diga-dry. _This is annoying. Maybe we should look around, since I have absolutely no idea where everyone went._ Though that's okay. I'm still kinda mad at them, so maybe this is bad but I diga-don't mind getting out of their faces for a moment.

A piece of my heart toys with the thought of my best friend, though, and I can't get it to stop. Heh.

Stupid. Miss him.

Carefully, I sidle up on the edge of Bomba's flank and slide diga-down the side of it, my feet landing hard on murky earth. Immediately my toes rub at the soil and I jolt back at the bite of curved pebbles in my skin, a low smile on my lips. I mutter "Ow" softly to myself a few times, hopping, before wiping each foot onto the opposing leg, and that loosens it up, though not as much as I would've liked. Bits of mud remain on my legs, though with the clash of shadow and not to mention the fact that my skin already comes off kinda muddy-colored it's hard to tell unless I mention it. Bomba laughs diga-drily from her spot by the middle of the opening.

Up high, to the right, here's a split in the rock face—what I must've fallen through, ouch—and on surrounding sides lies very not reassuring layers of rubble. Diga-Dang... and I diga-don't have a vivosaur that can fly. Oop—and neither diga-does Dino. Well, looks like I'm screwed for the time being. That's fine. Maybe if I try I can climb up the wall but I'm a... little too shaky to try anything right about now, so maybe later. Nnnnnf.

A thin stream of light, and that's all we get. I politely ask Bomba to glow some—fire vivosaurs are particularly good at that type of thing—and she diga-does, but only reluctantly. Because Bomba. And it hits me, a thick, low wave—she's tired. I think of Foster and the others and I wonder how this makes _them_ feel... what this means about _them_.

On the ground lies various bits and pieces of rock, and diga-dirt, and other mundane and expected things, but I pick up a noticeably diga-darker stain of murk further in the back. Creeping closer, I gently ease toward the mucky spot, closer, closer, and when it diga-doesn't jump out at me I go faster until I step on the edge and—and nearly fall in.

Oh my gosh. A _hole_. It looks... pretty diga-deep too. I diga-duck my head in—planting my feet on the rim around it—just for good measure—and cold, musty cave air wafts up at me, but it's too thin and the edges are a little too smooth to be completely natural. Like... what? Who the heck made this and why? Oh—right. Maybe someone else got stuck in here, diga-duh.

When I lean back out, my hair gets trapped on some stupid piece of gross whatever and I yelp—loudly—pulling back and landing in a wet _plurp_ on a particularly sodden mud pile. My hair flips back over my face, some strands sticking with mud, and I stay there, smiling stupidly, for a while.

Bomba giggles again. _Ohhh, poor baby._

 _Shut up._ I pull some strands away from my lip. Yuck—Mud flavor. My face screws up. _Stop it. It's not my fault I fell out of the... the Harei._

 _The Harei._ Another giggle. _But you're the one who punched Dino first, and then Raptin shoved you harder than he must've intended, and now you're here._

 _Gaaah. Diga-Don't say it like that... Makes me feel all... like a failure, I diga-don't know._ Though I guess I was too busy beating up and getting beat up to tell... but still.

Oop—and then I feel a medal wrest out of my tunic pocket and plop on the mud beside me. Quickly Morie forms up by her u-raptor friend, her green scales and red feathers somehow sharper in contrast. _Jkonna, don't think like that! Those thoughts are poisonous and will hurt you more than anything else! What are they good for, anyways? Nnnnothing!_ Weak too. Tired too. She's a fighter though, Morie.

Oh. Hey. In the hole—I think I hear a bout of... rustling. Alright, that's terrifying, I'm scooting back now.

 _Jkonna! Are you even listening? Ugh, you go on and on about your Dino being a nuisance and then you won't even bother to treat anyone else with the respect you ask for! Hey, ahhh—Jkonna, pay attention or you'll just be making a bigger mess out of yourself!_

It's getting louder. I think I'm out of my mind. I think I'm gonna lose it if something pops out of that hole. Just my luck, I bet it'll be, like, _Guhnash_ or something. Well. If he—she?—it?—still existed. I'm not that unlucky.

 _Jkonna! Focus!_

Or am I?

 _Wurrvrwurrvrwurrvrwruuurrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhh!_

"YEEEK! WHO'S THERE! UHHH! S-S-S-STATE YOUR NAME?"

I leap to my feet and shove my hands out in front of me in a maybe threatening manner but then I step backwards and realize my foot's on my hair and then I just fall over again, but I get back up, so that counts as something. And hey, if I'm blushing, they can't tell, since it's diga-dark. But—oh, turd, that means I can't tell much about who they are either. Uuuuuuuuh, I diga-don't like thiissss... my skin's all clammy now... this is gross...

Finally I feel the sense of a presence raking its hot gaze over me... though as hard as I stare I can't make anything out of the stupid hole. In a quick plea, I ask Nodopi to get her butt out here and diga-do some lighting things up with her maia magic but she diga-doesn't wanna get diga _-dirty_ , ohhhh, _boo-_ freaking _-hoo_. Hate you.

She sounds tired too, but I diga-don't really care about that right now. My heart's trying to climb its way out of my chest.

Not sure how this works but I swear I feel the voice before I hear it.

"Jina?" Quiet. Tiny. _Jina_.

Oh my gosh, no. It's _not_ them. That makes complete sense, but, but still, _no_ way. So I have to call Bomba over and glance diga-down into the hole again, and I realize at the bottom—shallow bottom—of it there's someone sort of sitting there, this tiny brown creature with matted muddy fur all around his face and eyes and stuff and he's sort of waving a clawed hand, this tiny adorable thing and—

"O-O'Mel?"

Wait. What's he diga-doing here? I thought the Complex was back at Vivosaur Island—in Rivet Ravine, y'know, where all the... all the _moels_ live. Right, that. Uh. Well he's obviously not there anymore. Oh my... _gosh_. What's... Why? But before I get an answer the little moel freezes and glances up at me through thick goggles and a ridiculous bobble hat and lurches up through the cave, clawing his way up up up the mud and up the diga-dirt and up the little lip of the tunnel until he barrels into my side and forces me into this really awkward moel hug.

"Jiiinaaaaaaaaaaaaa! O'Mel's on anotd... anodder adbenture! With his fweeennnds!" Aw, how cu—

Wait. Wait, he said... friends. Oh my gosh there's not more of them are there. Moels make me slightly uncomfortable. Like, it's not as bad as that last time—oh that last time was awful—but still, it's pretty sort of severe and I diga-don't think I can—

Oh would you look at that a bunch of tiny O'Mel-sized furballs clinging to my body and also hugging me tightly. This isn't horrible at all. This is completely comfortable. _Uhhhllll_.

Thankfully, with the terrible lighting and all, nobody notices the ugly face I make. Also they're too busy freaking out about _O'Mel's old pal Jina_ to pick up on my vibe, even though I feel like it's pretty freaking obvious. Whatever, they're kids I guess... I never diga-did like kids though. Uhhh. This is... not fun.

And then I realize that maybe I'm not stuck here after all. "Hey, uh, guuuyss?" And like the perfect little children they are, everyone shuts up to hear what insightful wisdom old Jina has to say to them. "So I'm kinda stuck here, and my friends are around here somewhere, probably looking for me... so could some of you go, uh, searching for them by any chance? Last I saw them they were"—I point up to the big latch in the rock, now on my left, where I fell in—"up outta there, somewhere, and you'd really be diga-doing me a solid if you could find them. That, uh, that okay with you? They're both, uh, tall guys with scales. Diga-Dinaurians. You know that? I think you know that."

Thank goodness for children. All polite and excited to be in my, uh, not exactly revered presence, a few of them jump up and diga-down and hurl up to the side of the cliff face and start climbing it no big diga-deal just like that. Tilting my head back, I let out a soft sigh. Ohhh, thank goodness... I miss Dino. N-Not that I'm gonna let him know about that when I see him again.

The only ones remaining are two of O'Mel's little lackeys. They sort of stare up at me, the tiny things, and I sort of stare back diga-down at them, and I can't say how long this goes on for since I'm too awkward and nervous to count time correctly until one of them pipes up and asks me, "So are you reaaaaaally Jina? O'Mel said—O'Mel said you'ze reaaal coool... you don't look all that cool to meee."

Oh. Ouch. I'd get snarky and tell him that no, I'm not Jina, I'm freaking Jkonna, but I'm not sure I want to diga-do that to myself, since O'Mel will come back, everyone'll get all confused, and these kids probably can't pronounce Jkonna as it is, so I just nod and kind of smile. "Uh, maybe O'Mel made me sound cooler than I actually am. I'm... moderately cool, for a human."

The moel's eyes widen. "Reeaaaaallyyyyyy?" His little friend bounces some at this, the first I've seen him diga-do anything, and I keep sort of smiling because that sort of counts, right? Pff, _moderately_ cool. I sound like Dino when I say it like that, oh my gos—

Dino... uuhg... now I feel pretty bad about yelling at him... my stomach queasy... his eyes alight with my voice as I raise it at him and his shock as he jolts back at me... listen to me, I yelled and heck if I was listening to him... d-diga-dang it... Stupid Morie knows me better than I like to think she diga-does...

That other moel, the one who's been pretty quiet, asks the next question. His little claw finger is diga-dangerously close to his nose and it he diga-dares try anything I'm gonna look away. Diga-Disgustng children. "Who's da diiiinoraans you'ze is looking for?"

Why diga-does everyone pronounce it wrong like that.

"My best friend. Dino? If you've heard of him? He's the diga-dinoran _prince_. And also Raptin. He's not a prince but he's pretty alright I guess, digadig."

They rouse, like this is hilarious. "Youuu guueesssssss? Oohhhhhh!"

That's not... they're not... aaah, whatever. Children.

Hey, speaking of, where's Lemo? If O'Mel's running away again, then he's probably around here somewhere too, right? Lemo's kinda creepy... his sarcasm's a little too strong to my tastes. Something about him just... makes me uncomfortable. Like, more uncomfortable than all the children. But I haven't seen him yet... s-so that's good.

He's Lemo, though. Wherever his younger brother is he's sure to pop out of. He's... like that.

We all go pretty quiet after that, because they run out of questions and I run out of thoughts and it just gets super awkward because there's not much left to diga-do except wait for O'Mel. I have no idea why these two stayed behind unlike the rest of the lackeys, but I guess they diga-did, and now we're stuck here together. Not even Morie and Bomba have anything to say about it, poor tired raptors.

It's just really awkward for awhile there.

It diga-doesn't stay that way for long, though. I glance back and slowly, eventually, finally, toward the top of the cliff face I catch a few of the moels spilling out from their great group of fuzz and landing casually on the rock floor, hardly winded. Up toward the top some larger figures file in, and they're way slower about getting diga-down, and they diga-don't casually jump to the bottom, so it takes awhile, but by the time Dino reaches the floor I can't help myself and diga-dart after him and then I—then I stop.

"Heh." He catches little glimpses of me through the half-light. Dino diga-doesn't look all that worse after everything. "You're covered in mud, Jkkie." Soft laugh. And he's quiet, then. "So... um... I'm, um... I'm sorry."

"Nnnnnnf..." I pout back at him. "Stop being sorry." His eyes go softer at that and I step a little closer to him. "Honestly, I should be... should be..." Diga-Don't think I've ever said it to him before, if anyone. I swallow. "S-Sorry." Stupid Jkkie.

Dino smiles faintly, a ghost of a grin caught in the light. "Heh." He looks away. "Get mad, or something."

"Yeah, you better." I poke his shoulder and a small giggle erupts from him.

It's almost heartrending how easy it is for us to forgive each other. Almost feels like... it's not something I diga-deserve. Like I haven't diga-done anything to earn that sort of treatment. And I'm not sure if I have either. But there it is anyways. S-Stupid.

In this weak, warm tone, Dino turns back to me and murmurs, "I'm so mad I could... I could, uh... if I could take it all out of my system and roll it into a ball, that ball would be the size of... of..." A playful glint in his diga-dumb gaze. "Of _that_." And takes the time to step toward me—I jump back a little nervously—and flick my—nose. My little... stubby nose.

"S-Screw you!" I squeak. "Diiinooooooo!" In the end I barrel against him and wrap my arms tightly about him because screw me too, he's just too much, and we're both laughing sort of quietly, in this soft way. And it's okay, then, which diga-doesn't make much sense because I remember the whole part where I'm covered in mud and we're stuck in a diga-dark diga-ditch and the only way out's diga-down a diga-demented moel tunnel. But it is anyways. It's just one of those things.

Though I can't say the same for how Raptin's feeling. He turns up by Dino's shoulder, his face spooky in the half-light, a nice slice of hatred shadowing each portion generously. His lip curls and he mutters, "Jkonna, there you go again, acting on complete primal instinct." And it diga-doesn't quite sound like an insult on its own, it's so bizarre, but with his twisted Raptin voice raking and wracking and hatefully hacking each word to pieces... I feel kinda threatened.

"We-Well! The ancients haven't hurt anyone by now, s-so it looks like we're fine!" Because I diga-don't have much an excuse for what I did, okay. Then again, Bomba said _he's_ the one whose shoulder accidentally pushed me off of Harei... though Raptin would diga-deny it, and he diga-didn't mean to anyways... and I diga-don't wanna go off yelling at him again. At least we're not stuck out there with the stupid ancients anymore. Wherever they are.

Raptin, though, diga-doesn't take that as enough. "It was reckless and unsafe, like—like how you always are. Truly, Jkonna, you must watch your temper more."

"Nnnnf! And who's to say I haven't!"

He lowers his eyes, effectively cutting off whatever I was thinking. "Just now, Jkonna," the softening of my name—that weird diga-dinaurian flip— _Jihahnah_ —makes me more uncomfortable now than anything else he's said to me. I diga-decide that Raptin's not something I wanna face at this time and hide my head more in Dino's chest, where it's safe.

And force him into the middle. Oop. "Heeeeey, guys, let's not—"

"Dino, why do you continue to be so gentle with her? While a soft stance is preferable for the majority of situations, she has yet to cease from thwarting you and you should do something about it, d-do not let it by so often!"

Swallow. "Raptin... I mean, she's always been like this. And she has gotten a... a little better." Pause. "Sort... of. Better than when we first met, I can assure you that. Though I guess... I've changed too." Wince. "Uh... W-Well! This isn't a time to keep picking fights. Let's just be happy about the fact that we didn't get screwed over by the ancients..?"

I raise my head, pulling back from my friend. Raptin glances back at me. A mild sense of annoyance colors him—and while it has cooled, I scoot back another step for safe measures. Raptin's... diga-determined. If he wants something to happen, he'll usually think rashly about how it gets diga-done too... though I guess he's pretty good at verifying it first. Well, that's how it sort of went down with the sub-idolcomps. "I suppose so. Any victory is a blessing, whether... fairly won or no." Oh. Ouch. Alright then, Raptin. He's probably diga-done with me by now and that's what I'm thinking has him wander off to the moels again.

It's here I turn and note, oh, wow, little O'Mel's been staring for awhile now. I probably should diga-do something about that. When I stride toward him—Dino, after a swift glance at Raptin, going after me—his furry head bursts into big innocent eyes and that bright moel smile and he goes, "Jina? Is Jina going on anodder adbenture tuooooohh? Will come tuoooooooohhh?"

Oh. Right. We're stuck here but for that hole. "Is that allowed..? I mean, I'd love to make use of the Complex again, if, uh, if that's not... intruding, or—"

"JINA'S COMING! YEAHHHAA!"

I'm not sure on how to react to this. I think my faint grin—or whatever remains of it—goes lopsided. Baaaah. "But not... like that last time! Me"—hand over my heart—"and Dino"—waving back at him—"and... uh, the other guy, Raptin"—sort of wave at the conglomeration over behind since he's probably around there somewhere—"we need to get to... Caliosteo! Right? I think that's what it's called. It has, like, three islands, diga, and... Dino's sister's there. So." As long as he diga-doesn't freaking grab my hand and race us out there to the ends of I diga-don't even want to know, I'll use that escape.

But we're pressed at this point. And we seriously need to go fast. Those ancients are bothering me...

"Ohh? Cawee... Caaaaaweeee... oh. Caweeeeosto. Cyaaaahhh—"

"Close enough." Diga-Don't hurt yourself, kid. Oh, and then I realize maybe I should ask him—before he goes or something—"O'Mel? What the heck are you diga-doing around here anyways? Alright, cool, your Complex spreads out past Rivet Ravine, but... but still! And where's your brother? I mean... Lemo's pretty protective! Isn't he out there mad at you?"

Oof. Hit a nerve. O'Mel's face whitens. "Mmmmmmaybe! But... But Lemo said there's... a distburbunse in somewhere... and O'Mel's gonna find it!"

Oh. So, like, diga-danger in the Complex and he's gonna run right at it. With his moel lackeys.

Over a _rumor_ , no less.

I get the feeling that maybe I should try to stop him from diga-doing that. Y'know. Before something awful turns up because of it. Plus, Lemo creeps me out enough as it is and he'd probably kill me if he figured out that we ran into O'Mel before the trouble he got into happened and we could've prevented something but diga-didn't.

Also, Dino has a good conscience. I feel his eyes on my back and I feel his Good Conscience Thoughts hitting me like stones.

Everything these diga-days is his fault. His fault I got mad, his fault I got us stuck here, his fault my vivosaurs keep picking on me, heck, _his fault_ I _met Lemo_ in the _first place_ , way back when. I'd still be a tremendously crude pest if not for him.

Foster diga-decides on his own that this is the perfect moment to stir. _Because that's a better way to spend your time._ Sometimes I hate him. This is one of those times. I'd punch him if he was around but he's still in his stupid medal and I diga-don't wanna make a huge fuss out of this now, with O'Mel staring at me, his mouth half-open, his claw in his mouth, this big mess of a life I'm starting to realize I've landed face-first into.

And Foster's tired too. I haven't heard from him in awhile.

Uh. Right. Good conscience. "O'Mel, uhhh, you probably diga-don't wanna diga-do that." Wait. No. He's not gonna listen. He diga-doesn't listen to his own older brother, who he both idolizes and terrorizes in the same breath. Then what diga-do I... ahhh, frick. "Heeey, O'Mel? You wanna... come with _us_ instead? We're going on a... on a pretty cool... adbenture. Um." My throat starts sticking at that last part and I burst into a barrage of coughing.

Lemo will show up eventually, right?

I hate this. Ohhhhhhhh my gosh... aaaaah...

"Really?" This thick, gooey expression of happiness begins its horrible climb on his little moel snout and I'm seriously regretting ever opening my mouth ever in my entire life. "We can... with _Jina_? On _her_ adbenture?" Oh, no. He's seriously considering this and everything. Oh, oh, oh no...

Wait. He said _we_. Oh. Oh wait—no.

I swallow, my lips forming into a weak smile. "Hey... O'Mel? Will... all of your... friends be... uh, coming too... if you diga-do?" I hate knowing the answer before he even says it. Where else are they all gonna go? Ugh, his stupid, like, five or six or maybe even seven lackeys, I diga-don't know, I diga-don't want to count them all...

"We'll all go, Jina! Alllll with Jina!"

So much as I hated this before and so much as I knew it was likely I somehow feel my heart shut diga-down for a good few seconds there as he reassures me of that, his sparkly fanciful gaze suggesting just how happy this should make me. Pff. And then I think I hate this entire mess a good ten times more.

Children. Oh, geez. _Children_. Know who's terrible with children? Know who was an absolutely terrible child and thus probably shouldn't be allowed around them?

There's a tiny voice trapped diga-deep inside of me and it's all I hear and it's all that nobody else diga-does.

But then I feel a hand, soft, warm, scaly, clasp my shoulder, and I feel a smile in his voice. "O'Mel, thanks for leading us back to Jina!" And I feel myself melting. "You're a... a good kid! Yeah! And... we'll all go to freaking Caweeosto together." And my eyes close, and I rest my head from all the tension I've put myself into, against his shoulder, and I sigh soundlessly.

O'Mel's voice squeaks in his frenzy to approve of all this, and he diga-darts off to go tell all his little friends about it. When I glance back up at Dino, he offers me this funny little grin and I diga-don't hear it but I feel him say thank you somewhere.

Diga-Didn't even know where they were going, stupid kids. Could've fallen diga-down a cliff or gotten themselves wedged up into something like this here for all we would've known. There's this relief, like a bubble, bouncing in Dino's eyes, that I catch and my heart sort of lumps at, my throat thick. Eventually all of the moels group up and start hurtling off into the cave and Morie returns to her medal and Bomba shortens herself enough so that she can fit in my arms and I carry her over to the hole and we leap through it together, Dino soon after, Raptin a little behind, because of course he's coming too.

It's not even a question at this point. Diga-Doesn't matter what he thinks of Dino, what he thinks of me, what he thinks of anything, until we get out of this.

Cavern walls split and turn eerily as we saunter through; a faint red hue overcomes them as Bomba nears and passes in my arms; the arms clutching her have been diga-dyed a strawberry hue, which flickers and fades with the breath in her lungs. Dino stays right by me, the little moels mostly fine just bumbling along ahead, though O'Mel stops a few times to grab at my tunic—no hands free—and stay like that peacefully, and everything's so... quiet.

It makes me feel like a... like a mom.

And... I honestly hate it. I just... hate it. I suck my cheeks in and can't quite breathe right until he leaves me to go off chattering with his friends. Some of them will look back at me, and then they'll try to brave walking by me, and... and my throat collapses in on me and my lungs are so thick and... and I try to stay near Dino when it overwhelms me.

He's warm. He's safe.

In between these moments I'll talk with my best friend, our voices faint and echoing around our diga-damp surroundings. Feet squish in soil and scrape across stone, and sometimes I'll step on my hair, and it's just us poking a little fun at each other, just us being us.

We're a lot less rude than we used to be, aren't we.

"Jkkie, you should trim those layers. Heh, back when we first met, it was a little shorter and you didn't step on it all the time. Just above the heel, right? Just enough to keep it from the ground so often."

"Mmmmmm... yeah, maybe. If I ever get to it. I might forget the next time there's a good chance, digadig, and I diga-don't exactly have any nice options for trimming it now. Puhh, what if I trip and fall on top of diga-Dina when we meet her? That'd suck."

Soft giggles bound upon the walls, back and forth and up and diga-down, a great fluid sweep of sound. "You're not gonna do that, and if you do, I'm sure it'll be fine. She _has_ to like you."

"Psssh, no she diga-doesn't! Dino, you can't make your sister—"

"But she haaaas to!" he cries softly, "cuz you're Jkonna! And I can't like her if she doesn't like my best friend!"

Gah—Ah. And there's one of those moments. It's like, suddenly all the turd I've diga-done to other people diga-doesn't matter as much as it probably should. Like I can forget about all the times I've harassed Raptin or harassed Rosie or yelled or punched or hurt other people, or the jerk I casually became over all the diga-dirty years I've spent growing up in pain.

Ugh... stupid Dino, making me feel good about the person I am.

We're quiet for a time, when I diga-don't respond. He eventually bumps against me and I stumble again. "Di-Dino! You shouldn't... say things like that. I get that family diga-doesn't always work out the way we'd want it to, but... come on. You see everything you've diga-done for her. Diga-Don't... chance it all out on me. Seriously." I blush, choking on my voice as I—"You'd be such a f-freaking good brother anyways! H-How can't she love you? And if she diga-doesn't, then she will after she gets to know you! She... has to!"

"Heh." His smile in the diga-dark. "She has to, huh."

I wipe at a cheek, giggling slightly. "Yessss," hissing it back at him, mock-angry.

So he said that to me back about her. Whatever. She _seriously_ has to like him. Seriously.

Dino's quiet as he thinks about all that. I lean to bump him next but he swerves, that sly boy, and I stumble again. "Heheh—um... random question." His voices goes serious. I try to diga-do that too. "Jkonna? Am... Am I getting too soft? It's funny, I never... I don't mean to do that, if I am. That's so weird, too... I don't think I've ever been like that, really. A-Apologizing all the time. That's so weird."

"Well you _are_ the one who led Rosie on forever," I sneer, and then I break it with a laugh and he knows I'm kidding. "But seriously. I mean. You diga-do what people ask of you. You... listen. But maybe you're just uncertain... a lot of the time. And your uncertainty makes you gentle, and weak and stuff." His gaze sparks as he watches upon me. "I-I diga-dunno. Like... is she even alive? What's she like? Is she okay, digadig? Where the heck are we anyways?"

"Eeeeeyy." He bats a hand at the air. "We keep going straight, or at least mostly straight like we have been, and we'll figure it out fine." Joking, too. In all reality, we have no idea where we're going, or if straight is even gonna get us there right, or if diga-Dina's even out there today. I diga-do remember her, faintly, back when I visited Caliosteo, when I saw _my_ sister—y'know—the one who forgot about _me—_ who I'll probably never have that connection with again—gaaaah, diga-depressing.

But that's the thing. Dino's a... good boy. A good brother. He gets annoying sometimes, and he used to be painfully immature—though I guess I was too— _turd—_ and I get that he diga-did forget about his family for so long—but he... tries his best. Right? And he's sweet. And he's soft with others. Not a pushover, but... well, he's Dino.

Heh. Why diga-does O'Mel flock to me then?  
Gaaaah. Probably no real reason.

I wonder... if he ever wants to be a diga-dad one day. Pff. Maybe not. I can't really see him as one—but what if he diga-does? He'd be good. I mean, he always is, huh. But... still. I diga-don't know, after everything... he might not want that responsibility in his life after weirdos like me popped up in it, not to mention his own diga-dad and then diga-Diggins and the mess we all made in his life.

Like on cue, he glances back at me again, and out of nowhere a little grin pops up on his lip. I try to punch at him, that _weirdo_ , and I finally diga-don't miss. Or maybe he lets me hit him.

...huh. Wonder if diga-Dina wants to be a—

Alright, now it's time to stop.

Wait. Wait. One more.

"Heeey Raaptiiiiiiiiin?" I toss my head back, a shower of hair shrouding poor Bomba.

He's somewhere behind us. I diga-don't know where. Sometimes the passages open into multiple entryways—we stay as forward as possible—but for a second I wonder if Raptin got lost and he's in one of those right now and we've lost him and—

Then the silhouette forms, at the very most possible edge of Bomba's fiery light, that weirdo. His face turns, though he diga-doesn't offer any sort of verbal response. Eyes narrowing. Freaking Raptin. "If you were a diga-daaaaaaaaaaad, wou—"

"No." The form steels, eyes widening. "Jkonna, whatever faulty line of thought you proceed upon, I suggest you burn it immediately and never return to it again." Alright, that was worth it. I can stop now. Turning back, I let loose a sharp little laugh and Dino looks at me funny about it but it's Raptin, so he diga-doesn't question any of what just went on.

I guess we're not that much more mature than we were before.

Because of our paces, which noticeably begin to lag even more than they already may have been lagging, the moels can't run off through the tunnel as fast as they might've gone before, so I wonder just how much slower we're going now... It's good—I mean, most of our vivosaurs are eerily quiet as it is, what with the diga-depletion of energy over our vast chase from the ancients that it looks like weren't even following us—though I wonder where that means they're headed—and now that we've covered so much ground, it's not like there's so much left to point fingers at.

Except... well, diga-Dina. But there's other things too I bet, stuff we just diga-don't have the context to know about. But it might also just be diga-Dina. That's not a very fun thought.

Possession. And then you throw in the whole diga-dinaurian thing, which may have something to diga-do with something, I diga-don't know, none of us really diga-do, that could... that could change things.

And... oh, speaking of changing things... my breath hisses out in a thankful sigh as my tired legs sense movement on the earth nearing and my tired ears hear some telltale panting and my tired eyes catch sight of him as he blasts by, and a few other large furry creatures too.

Oh, finally. I knew it couldn't take that long. Where there's O'Mel, there's also his older brother... and some other important family members of other moels too apparently. Well, that makes sense.

A great tremor fills my body and I have to sit diga-down for a moment. I'm... shaking kind of hard. Something about it, something about seeing all of these stupid kids get taken into responsible hands and out of my immediate proximity is... is... aaaaah... I'm so relieved...

As we start to pull in together and Lemo stops berating his younger brother for being himself, he turns toward us—a paw secure around O'Mel's—his eyes strangely lightening. "Oh, it's you guys." He pulls closer. "We were actually heading in your general direction for something too." Nah. No thanks for watching over O'Mel for him. Probably thinks he'd find him eventually, the snob. "Heard about the whole, uh... exploit. Going for those islands, right? For your..." Glances at Dino. "Sister, was it? I dunno. Diggins wasn't really focusing when he told me the gist, but he had something to tell you, and since word got out about the ancients, I already had a feeling we'd be running around in the Complex as it was, so I took it. Not like they're wrecking everyone's lives as it is."

My heart—I... oh my gosh. I hadn't even... thought about that. Haven't thought about him well for some time. I miss him. I miss diga-Diggins. Diga-Doug. Whatever. I miss him. He's... sweet, too, y'know. I-I miss that. And _Vivian_... I miss... home. M-My home.

Dino catches my hand flash in the semi-light as I take it from around Bomba's waist to force my mouth shut before I say something stupid or... nnnh... but I see him, I see him in the corner of my eye watching. He turns back and goes, "Wow... really? Well, you found us. What the heck was he talking about?"

"Oh, one of his old friends in the area. I get the feeling it'd be of some use to you, if you're curious."

If we're curious. "Of course we are!" I yell it through my mouth but I think it's obvious enough.

"Well." Lemo glances back at me, his eyes sliding... creepily along, and then he can go on. "His old friend—Nick Nack, he knew him too when I saw him and brought it up—name's Joe, I think. You'll wanna look for him. He knows something about Dina I guess. Diggins told me to go to him if I got that far but thankfully my rascal brother didn't." A glare in that direction. "I'd rather not stray so farrrr... gaah. Well anyways, what was it? Something about you, too.

Oh. Pointing at Dino. At Raptin. The... diga-dinaurians. "He was tryin' something. Made it out to be a... what's it called... you scaly guys, an experiment about you. About ancients. Brought up the whole deal with the igno and the frigi, right? Them."

Dino stiffens. "What about them?"

Raptin's lips sort of form into a little oh, like he thinks he knows.

"Be assertive about the ancients? I dunno. Something like that. Don't let them show you up. He mentioned an Iggy, though by then I'd lost him. Something about being assertive around an Iggy."

"Oh—OHhhh... then that means..." My best friend stares over at Raptin, whose face flushes. "I mean..." He diga-doesn't get to finishing.

"Well"—Lemo butting in again—"I'll see the lot of you later maybe. But maybe not. Hopefully not. My brother's a nuisance." A bat of his clawed paw and Lemo goes back for his brother... and like that the whole lot of them starts to clear up again.

Quiet for a little while. It turns out I'm not the only one completely juiced, and we end up sitting in the middle of the cavern, resting our backs toward the walls, where it's not so wet like the openings. Just sitting there. Bomba's faint light grows fainter as she lulls slowly into sleep. I feel it on me too.

We all must.

So much as there is going on... it's like, it's too much. I need a break. We all need a break. Seriously. And it's so quiet and diga-dark and... it's like it's asking for us to rest.

Though there is still something else I still need to understand.

"Dino, what the heck was that crazy talking about?"

He stirs. His eyes diga-don't waver far from a spot on the floor by him. "Talking about ancients."

"Yeah, but... Dino!"

"Nnnn... sorry..." He bites at his lip. "Talking about how... remember when I woke Iggy? Like... nobody's done that before, I guess. So the dinaurians are... stirring them. But we have... uh, power over them? But—But you guys don't." Glancing nervously at me. "None of you. Remember Bullwort? He didn't. That was messy. It was all really messy."

Oh. Huh. But... still... "Why are you... telling me this now? Y-You make it sound like you've had it all figured out for awhile..."

He blushes. "Oh, it... It just makes sense to me. Maybe I have, but I didn't wanna admit it... I-I dunno. Ancients are tiring. We shouldn't focus on them as it is. They're not what we're looking for. And... they're not all nice, and stuff. And so many of the ones we've seen are... angry. Scary. And Diggins thinks it has to do with us that they're all seriously showing up all of a sudden...

"And I just... worry about it. Because if that's true, if we're like beacons to them, then... I-I mean, my sister's possessed by one. And they're everywhere. And that's... it's just... It's danger, that's what. Lemo's right. Heck... O'Mel's right too. They just didn't know where. But we..."

And then we're quiet again.

Not much to combat that.

 **Heh... that chapter got a little heavy toward the end (and the beginning too I guess, huh?) But there were some things that needed to be covered.**

 **More hints about the ancients and power and dinorans! Dino is the one who revived Iggy and the one to return Thomas, and anyone else who came in contact with them in their spooky ancient state, not revived (as in Bullwort and Jkonna) didn't come out of it okay. No fun. Too much power. Possession's too easy.**

 **And the dinaurians level it out? I feel like they'd have something to do with it, being the people who came first, heh.**


	30. Do: The Unworthy Parents

**Here it is! We've hit the... next milestone? Well anyways, chapter 30! Only 11 to go! (why 11..? ….you'll see! Hah!)**

 **wow this is funny, there'll actually be 2 chapters in between Rupy for once, he's just always popping up around here huh**

 **Rupert: -sort of annoyed blushy face-**

 **Dino: hah! Take that**

 **Rupert: you are the one who started this series, Dino; Starry even wrote your first chapter before Dina's if but by hours**

 **Dino: ...but still take that**

 **Jkonna: ka-punch**

 **Dino: don't actually punch him, that's like... rude**

 **Jkonna: but**

 **Dino: that's rude Jkkie**

 **Jkonna: whatever heck you digadig**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 30: The Unworthy Parents

 _Dino_

We continue on not too long later, but long enough later for everyone to get that decent sleep we all sorely lacked.

The first thing I come to learn about traveling in tunnels is that they're freakishly dark; and I mean, I guess I already knew that, but there's something about the darkness that changes over the amount of time I spend in it now. There's this... feeling; I sense more than see my surroundings and I usually get a general idea of when to stop before I bump my head. It's different. It's... weird. And it's especially weird seeing that faint light Bomba sputters just dangling red around us, and that's pretty much it.

The second thing I come to learn about traveling in tunnels is Raptin's feelings toward it.

These feelings are large. These feelings are spooky. These feelings are ugly feelings.

Huh. Never thought about it. But it makes sense, in a way, that he hates small spaces in such limited lighting. Not all that different from Guhnash and starships in space and everything else he had to go through to get this far. Dark, musty, confined spaces... can be a little unnerving. And thus he steps on my foot just about every time he steps. Oh, Raptin. Dear Raptin.

He's also still mad about Jkonna. So that doesn't help things.

Nobody does it like he does, huh. But I get it. I'd probably be the same way if I hadn't forgotten about my family and the crash and Guhnash myself for so long or... or something. That's kinda sad to think about, so maybe I'll stop; then again, I don't think my dad's all weird like Raptin is... whatever. I should realize that it doesn't actually matter.

Our steps bounce back at us on the walls... and the ground's cold, and so is the air, and sometimes Bomba forgets about releasing her light and everything gets freakishly black, an unnerving void, for a few seconds there. Something about it's so enticing, so exciting, that I don't really let any of this get me down. The whole feeling about doing something for myself for once is probably what does me in; also, Droplet doesn't have to tote us around, or Harei, or Bliss, or anyone, and that's nice too.

I know that I was taxing them, but we just... well, it wasn't a desirable situation, right? Any solution could've made things worse. Freaking Jkonna took things into her own hands like she always intends to, whether the way she did it was intentional or not... but I can't say I'm annoyed. It's quiet here. Lots of room for thought. Not all wet and smelly like how we all felt about each other after being trapped on the same living creature for a good few weeks and not to mention neglecting baths.

We still smell bad, though. It's just... less bad. Because of the cave having its own earthy scent, this musty odor slips on like a glove over the hand that is our disgusting bodies, especially when Bomba forgets about the light, so it all works out in the end, sort of. But either way, I can't say I mind: we got stuck here, so our only option's to meander on and eventually reach an opening.

The path still casually verges sometimes, but having no better idea of where the heck we're going, straight and onward it is, and straight and onward it will be, as it has been. Just underground instead of above. Man, the silence was almost deafening in here when all those little moels left. Can't say I miss them.

Oh, that's—

I close my eyes and smile vainly as Raptin's toe scrapes at my ankle for the next time today. Today? I'm not sure if it's tomorrow yet out there, we'll have to figure that whole mess out later. "Hey buddy, your talon's, like, right at my ankle. Can you... step back some? Please? I get that you're scared, and all, but—"

"Dino, what an accusation." Oh no. "How dare you confront me!" He's got _the tone_. "Dino, I am _not_ afraid of this atmosphere, and do not even try to condone me as so! You cannot be so crude as to relent to such indecency, can you? Well! I suppose you have and I suggest you refrain from the encroachment upon my personal fears in the future!" Alright, my head is spinning.

My old dinaurian friend could go on, but he's forced out of context by a harsh laugh that melts the room with its fierce intensity. "Ohhhh, Rapty, Rapty! You and you gigantic words, digadig!" Her voice has this warm, mellow tinge to it that harshly contrasts the rough feeling of a texture hidden down in it. "We get it! You hate it here and you're scared of all the diga-darkness and the spooky sounds going on in here! And... wait, there was something else." Thoughtful pause, a bit of a hum snuck in there. "Ah! Right, who can forget the scaaawey scaaaweeeeyy tight spaces? Ohhhhh noooo!"

I shove at her and miss, giggling softly. "Jkkie! That's rude!"

"Hummmph!" Her cheeks faintly puff in the semi-darkness. "Well Raptin was rude first, so he better apologize... uh, first! I diga-don't have to if _he_ diga-doesn't!" She happily strolls here, her hair bouncing with her step, her eyes a shining blue that thinly cuts through the tunnel's uneven walls.

"Oh, how childish of you! Both childish and excessive! _Jkonna_ " _—_ heavy accent on her name there—"you _do_ realize that the world does not bow down to your every last motive, yes? You are just as insignificant as anyone else!" For such a bold voice, you'd think he'd be going somewhere with it.

Funny thing is, he's not. Jkonna releases another bark of laughter. "Uhhhh _huh_! No I diga-don't, and I diga-doubt I ever will!" There's a curve of irony on her lip, one she's certainly not gonna tell Raptin about and one I'm betting she's trusting that I won't tell him either.

Well, I don't, so good for her. For now. " _Dino_!" Does he always have to go to me for these things. My gosh. Raptin, be a man and get it out of her yourself. "Tell this ungrateful brat off for how _insolent_ she is acting, would you? Oh, I cannot _believe_ you allowed her to join us on this journey, one without any extra room for ditzes like she!"

I'm gonna guess that he's _still_ upset about the thing where she fell off of Harei and into the mountain and then we didn't see her again for a while after that and it was just not very fun to deal with. See, now Raptin, whether he knows it or not, has to be banking on me too, because if I bring up the fact that our lovable stoic Raptin here is only giving _poor Jkkie_ such a hard time because he lost his mind when she disappeared like she did, then it'd be over for him. Cover blown straight open. Boom. The end.

They're both so _stubborn_.

And I don't bring that up either. Oh... the two of them are so funny. They should maybe stop relying on me so much, though; but I'm at this point the only bridge between their two very opposite personalities, so it's not like they have anywhere else to go when they've had too much of the other. I'm the one who knew them first and I'm the one who got them here in the first place. They have their own reasons for coming too, I'm sure, but I must've been some sorta priority in there.

 _Don't flatter yourself, kid._

I start. _Droplet! Droplet, you're back!_

A long, drawn-out yawn sifts in and out of my head. _Not quite. Sort of, but... not quite. Don't go expecting a ride from me anytime soon; so much of Lone's energy has been put into that and it's just hit a point. Y'know? It's hit that point. Harei's quiet too, so don't expect much from her either. Actually, don't expect anything from her at all; she got all shy and stupid again._

 _And Lone?_ My little nasaur has been suspiciously quiet.

 _Dino, I already told you what her deal is. She's exhausted. I'm exhausted. Harei's in a state of ugliness that she really shouldn't have let you push her to, that turd._

 _Golden turd._

 _That's not even funny. It's kinda gross._ I feel her crack a bit of a grin at it, that liar. _Anyways, I should probably not expend my energy so much. So little as I've started to get back and here I am, wasting it by throwing mean words at your face, and they aren't even_ good _mean words, more like lazy comebacks, the bad ones nobody wants to hear._ Geez, Droplet. I appreciate the favor, but someone sounds more than a little cranky. And she probably catches that too, because she scowls and mutters, _I'm tired, shut up, leave me alone,_ and blanks out of my head again with a surprising enough speed I'm left miffed.

There's a slight shift in the lighting, and the earth beneath our feet, the next turn that comes and goes. One that snaps Jkonna and Raptin out of their stupid, half-tried bickering, one that wipes Droplet out of my head. But it's not the subtle change so much that surprises us; I wouldn't have noticed it all on its own. But it's... how it changes, it's the sensation of burning on my toes that has me shift and turn and bump straight through my best friend so that we go bumbling at the wall.

Raptin is very civil and practiced and his tidy self in general as he carefully leads back from the glowing stones. He puts on his best, blank stare, the one that doesn't quite so much give away his furtive confusion, as he sharply asks, "What is this?"

"Um." Jkonna sort of kicks at a purple one with her toe. "Glowing rocks, diga, you want one?" There's a dubious stare in her face, like it's obvious, but just so suggesting that maybe it's not really but it's pretending to be obvious and there's actually a secret something hidden within these stupid glowing purple greenish blue rocks. They're pointy... I guess, but mostly musty and eh like everything else.

Since they refuse to do anything except for sit there and glow, Jkonna tentatively bends over on her knees and scoops up one and the white-hot shock that courses through her is priceless as she silently squeaks and hurtles the thing as far away as she can get it from her smarting brown hands and it goes _SMMOCK_ against the wall by Raptin's arm.

He reacts similarly, and he doesn't even get hit by it, that weirdo.

"Guys!" I call, "guuuyyyys," and I try a few more times, my voice more than slightly wobbly, until I more or less have the both of them staring at me. While nervous and sporadic about the whole thing, they're present, which is good enough for me. "So we figured out they're... spooky." Slight nodding. "Maybe they're a... sign? For something? Or... uh?"

"Sign for what?" Jkonna's back to being dubious. Oh no. I have to step in and slap her hand away before she grabs one of those stupid rocks again. "Heeey! I'm just... being observant, you!" There's not really any annoyance in her face, and what small deposits there are that sit in her tone are tiny enough they probably aren't real. This is kinda spooky, gotta admit. But it... doesn't come off as much of an ancient, either. At least, you can't pick up and throw pieces of them... right? P-Probably. Plus, Iggy and Thomas would've casually butted their heads in if this was—if this—was...

was a... threat.

Slowly my eyes travel along the figure as it lifts out from the rocks and gingerly stands on two legs. A milky white, transparent and weak, I stick a finger through it and a heat rushes to the tip of it, but not one as burning as Jkonna reacted to it. She stares at me, eyes wide, for a moment, before trying this out too, and she yanks her hand away, then back, playing with the difference. Her face is so stretched thin and shining of sweat it's almost a mirror.

Raptin edges on and... you can see it in his eyes, the tugging curiosity, but some sort of modest thought pops up and snags him first so his hands ball into fists at his sides, and then he crosses the arms attached to them, like this'll keep even the worst of temptations out of his head. "Who are you?" And he softly voices it, like he actually expects the answer.

He doesn't get an answer though. This stupid silhouette's too milky to make out much, but when the arms come out I swear I see them, and those things standing up our shadowy white friend are definitely legs—two legs—and... and I can't quite describe it, the feeling curling, curling around my heart and squeezing tightly the closer I get to it. Like... Like I know it.

Like I know... them. And I want to say I do. I really do. But there's so... so little to go off of, with this little ghost of a person. As I pull to my feet, reluctantly lifting my hand away from the pooling warmth, I note the... obvious height difference; our apparition barely reaches to my shoulder, if even. Slightly... just slightly shorter than Jkonna, who straightens as she notes this and tosses a thick heap of hair over her shoulder.

And then it steps back. A rush flows with it, pulling like a snare, like a chain, and I yank after but then I pull back, righteously freaked out, and I glance wide-eyed at my best friend who notes the incline of dirt and mumbles something wordlessly, swallowing, trying again once, twice, before she's able to put any sound to it: "I think that's where an exit is. I-I think we should follow it."

"I think you're right," I mumble in a tiny weak voice that makes it sound like I'm lying.

Raptin merely nods. His face is a hollow husk of wonder. The eyes are all with color, and they move so... brilliantly, so bright, so full of feeling and luster. I scoot closer to him and he greatly accepts my company and then I realize I'm standing on the rocks and—and holy _turd_ the rocks are _hot—_ and then I'm squeaking softly and hopping forward and we all pull in like a tide.

Someone steps on my tail. I crash into the mud, my chin crusted in... slime.

Oh, curse you, Raptin. Curse you and your fear of musty dark tunnels. As I pull myself up again, hurriedly after that ghost thing, my legs start to ache a little and my head is swimming and I catch faint hints of it, up and up the cavern, light shining down the hole, however faintly it does. My hands fall into fists and I rush after harder, and harder, my breath oozing out of my lungs with each slamming step and I slip and I fall more times than I'd like to admit to.

When I emerge, shaking, upon a small opening in the earth, I enter this thick, green foliage and sit gently on the grass by the opening. I run my hands through my hair and I'm not sure if it's the hair or the hands that come back grimier. That was a stupid idea. And, well, Droplet's quiet, and Lone's quiet, and even my ancients are lacking of tone, so I just sort of sit there for a little while.

The grass is soft. A little spiky, but only a little. Trees sway off in the breeze, and its cold hands tangle around me, but I don't really go anywhere but for the strands of my hair that aren't covered in muck. I must look like a freaking _weirdo_ right about now. Something about this is hilarious, and I have to lay back and laugh at it for I don't know how long, it's just so stupid it's funny. My heart's so thick in my chest it's hard to breathe. I wipe at my cheeks and more mud falls into the cracks between my scales.

I feel... clammy. Ullhhhgh. Pretty forest scenery only does so much. But I have to keep waiting, or else I'll lose Jkonna and Raptin and they'd both hate me for that. And I've already built up so... so much of Raptin's trust. It'd be a shame to waste it now, huh.

Should wait for a better moment to—

Heh. I'm kidding.

Slowly I raise my head and roll my eyes at a horizon I can hardly see, there's so many leaves swathed in it. Silly Dino.

It's the _dinoran_ himself, er, the _other_ dinoran himself, whose footsteps shake with the feeling of the tunnel and pop him out by me next. He has the decency to trip just before he comes out, and his entire torso smacks against the earth in this really unpleasant-sounding _SPURSH_. But he raises and shakes his head alright—though the blues and yellows have streaks of mud in there too—so he should be fine, if he isn't already.

Soft panting makes up our conversation for a little while. Then Raptin wipes at a cheek with his palm and cups his head in it, and closes his eyes, and murmurs, "Escape, Dino. How pleasing it is to feel the wind on my scales, to see the sun in the sky. Aah..."

"Heheh." I can't help it. "Funny you say that, what with your eyes closed and all. Raptin, I didn't take you to be the psychic type! Huuhuuu—uuuh! Raptyy!" A giggle breaks from me as I dodge his playful swat, one that doesn't even meet my range: y'know, what with his eyes closed and all.

"What a child you are." Gently smiling as his eyes open, and how serene they are, how at peace he is. "What a foolish boy you must be, Dino, to your core and all." His lip quirked, his gaze light, a soft, warm flush on his cheeks.

Silly Raptin, too. "Heeeey! You're a child boy stuff first!" And then I swat back and manage to aim so poorly I land practically on my stomach at the dirt again. I didn't think of it at the time, but Raptin actually can't be the child first since he's older than me and all, but that doesn't really matter, certainly not in the heat of things.

"Heh." Raptin edges back from me, and I'm sure he's trying not to let it be obvious but I think I hear his freaking tail thump on the ground... wagging. "You could say, I suppose... though if you did, you would be lying." And when I glance up, there is this wicked glint in his eye—and I—I'm pretty sure he's kidding, but... but man, that stare is ominous. I have to swallow and smile weakly at that when a laugh, deep and strong, tumbles out from his lips. Being the modest weirdo he is, his hand cups his mouth when he does that and I think he's blushing purple again, though I don't bring it up and make it worse on him.

She's last. Hair in a great, knotted mess that I haven't helped in any way, her skin probably muddy but it's hard to tell, since it's already so brown and all, and those sharp blue eyes... with a wave, Jkonna plops herself down beside us. "So!" Pulls back her arms. Stretches a little. "Good—uh—good run! Man, that was something!" Her head whips back and she points out at a random copse of trees in the horizon. "So where diga-did the glowy guy go?"

Oh. I don't know. "Disappeared? Haven't seen it since. Maybe"—I start, giggling—"man, maybe we all _hallucinated_ the _exact_ same thing! That'd be pretty funny. Right? Yeah. Well, either way." Raptin's nose wrinkles and I have to focus on not letting it distract me. "It happened... I guess. Though it's gone now. For now."

At that little thought, there it pops again, our tiny streaming guide of white light. As I focus in on it more, I... well, I can tell it's a figure, or a shadowy figure of some sort—human figure? Or maybe dinaurian. Something like that. Not a vivosaur, that much I can tell.

As the head turns and the body sets slowly down a worn path, I catch a faint hint of... curves, in the silhouette, and, not blushing or anything, no, not _at all_ , I pull at my best friend's side and mumble, "I think it's a she." Her eyes follow mine and she covers her mouth, a loud snort bursting from somewhere inside.

"Yeah. That's probably a she. Hmmmm... judging by it—and the curls, too, diga-do you see those faint curls of hair diga-down her back?—maybe it's Rosie. That wouldn't make much sense, though. I diga-doubt she'd even know how to... how to diga-do something like that." Her palm out, she gestures at the figure.

"Yes, that is certainly enlightening, but do you not suppose we should go after it before we are left alone in this forest?" prompts Raptin, his eyes taking great pains to dart between the figure and us, the first he's unable to look at for very long, his cheeks at a purple tinge.

Oh right. "That's probably a good idea." I start up, wiping down what dust comes off and more or less ignoring the turd that won't come off.

Jkonna smirks. "I diga-dunno about the rest of you, but I personally wouldn't mind staying and starving in the woods."

"Aaaah, Jkkie, that's morbid, shut uuuup!" I splay a palm in her direction and she raises hers and slaps at it. "That wasn't anything to—Jkonnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

"Heeheeee! Well now it is!" A great, toothy grin bursts up her face as she pulls up by me. Raptin soon after makes his way to us, and then there it is, and there we are. The sun beats down on us, though it's not all that high up—yet, I note: yet. Faint strings of mist burn in the sun's climb and melt away, leaving more and more pockets of heated shadows to take over what's left. It's... not so hot as to be uncomfortable, but it's obviously not cold either. Kinda like Vivosaur Island, I guess—the Resort, that is. Pff, this is no Mt. Lavaflow, I'll say that much.

The forest begins thinning: slowly, and then by fat chunks of open land, the grass springy and short on our bare feet. Further and further and I—swoop and I turn back and I suck in a breath there, because that is a drop and I very nearly just walked off of it. Hardly... saw it coming, but for the sparkling view up ahead. Geez, that's dangerous.

"A cliff," murmurs Raptin, perched by my shoulder. He leans over my side and our shadows meld together as they bend down the edge. "How... ah, large."

"You diga-don't say." My best friend turns to give a sharp look at Raptin, who in turn ignores the entire ordeal, so Jkonna gives it up and turns back to the view. Her head tilts back and she loses her breath for a moment there, eyes glassy. "That's... That's a big diga-drop, there. Oof. Wow. Nice though. It's like... Rivet Ravine, but not ugly."

I pout. "Rivet Ravine's not ugly, Jkkie."

"Yes it is!" She pouts back, sticking out the end of her tongue. "It's all pockmarked and brown and I bet moels, like, pee in it or something!"

Alright. Alright, now we take a step back.

Her cheeks flush and she giggles weakly, turning away. "A-Aaaanyways. Big diga-drop. Big, uh, big cliff. Rosie wouldn't... know where this is, would she. Then I... I wonder what the big diga-deal is with the glowy guy. It... nnnnnh. What the heck diga-does a _cliff_ we've never even seen before have to diga-do with anything?"

"I dunno." I mean, it is all kinda bizarre. Not gonna deny it. "But I think I see a... sign, over there? And off in the distance, over down there... a few houses. We could always iiiinvestigate."

Raptin allows a small grin to color him. "You say that as if you intend to interrogate the home... in a rather violent manner, may I add."

"Pssh. That's ugly."

His eyes brighten. "Yes, rather." And I think he's close to laughing, but he's not quite there enough. That's okay, though. The message is palpable. I can feel it. Heh. When did he get so much softer around me? He's hardly changed around Jkonna, and yet... well... Raptin's a nicer guy than he lets on. Maybe he's... thinking about it less, about what happened to Duna. Maybe he's just relieved to be out of that hole. Or maybe not. I don't know.

It's nice. I like it. It's weird, seeing him smile so freely, but it's just a different weird, not a bad weird, not at all.

We lead off then, to the right, toward what looks like the end of the island, once this huge hill lets out. It's slow going because of the sheer steepness, and it makes me wonder if we just bothered to look around more we'd find some stairs or a trail or something somewhere less steep, but I think we're all a bit revved after the tunnel anyways so it's not like we're exhausted. Man, if anything, it's like adrenaline took over in my bloodstream. I'm... frantic. A little panicky, almost—ahhh... a little bit. My heart's beating, beating, beating in my skull and I slip as I go down, though not enough to send me streaming all the way to the bottom.

I glance over. No girl. She's not in front, not behind, not beside us. Maybe she's on the easy trail. Or maybe she's being weird again, I dunno. Is she even real? I guess I can say that whatever's going on is real, since that was our second time seeing her... but it doesn't feel right. Well, of course not, glowy white blobs of girls don't just show up out of thin air all the time. At least, they didn't back on Vivosaur Island... oh geez, painting it in _that_ like, like it's _normal_ over here... That's freaky. How about I don't think of that.

In my wandering, I casually bump into Jkonna at some point and send her careening over, to which she jumps up and slams at my side and then I nearly fall, but I don't, so she gets all huffy at me, for not "doing her a favor" of... Whatever, Jkonna. And while he's quiet, and further behind again—not all that smart, since he's tripping over us if we seriously fall—Raptin's making his way in such a sturdy stride that I get the feeling nothing could move him.

We must all feel it. The... The difference in the air. Of course it won't be the same as the last place we came from, of course the tunnel altered some of our sensations for us as we were stuck in there... but that's not it. The freshness, the warmth, the little island none of us can even remotely recognize... It's like... there's something about here. Something else.

Nervous, I ask Thomas, _Heeeey, no ancients around, right?_ just to be sure.

 _Of course not._ Scoff. _You'd know by now... probably._ Gee, thanks. Weirdo frigi. _If anything, it's the utter lack of ancient that gives this place such a... mystifying feel. I do wonder if there was ever one here before, or if this entire little island's always held such a sleepy attitude toward the rest of the world and their happenings... and potentially-deadly ancients._ He harrumphs at that, like it changes anything.

"Hmmm... I diga-dunno, digadig. It diga-does feel... odd here. T-To say the least." Jkonna shivers, head pinched, like she's shaking off a sneeze. "You feel it too, Rapty? Something else about this island..."

Old dusty yellow eyes glimmer somewhat as I turn back to face him. "Of course." His lip curls. "I distrust this island."

Jkonna rolls her eyes wish a slow exhale. "Raptin, you can't diga-distrust an entire islan—"

"You each say these sorts of things to each other constantly, Jkonna, and now you pick me out for it?"

She closes her eyes. "Alright, shut up, digadig."

And I'm not sure how, or why, but it works, and we're quiet but for tiny pockets of panting until the cliff gently rolls out upon the earth below and I land awkwardly and that's not fun but it's done. I glance back up at the top, breathing deeply, and what a great thing that we didn't have to climb all the way up it... though I guess we sort of did in the moel tunnel. Heh... I can just imagine a whole group of them digging up at a slant to try and make a ramp up and out of ground, but then they just keep getting higher and they still don't break ground for ages until they finally pop up and realize they're at the top of a cliff.

Jkonna nudges at my side and I turn and that's right: the sign. There it lies, thick poles struck into the earth, solid, like they've been in there for a long, long time. A great board beckons closer, and the words scratched hard on it, layer after layer, read out **Mini-Vivaldi Isles** , and I just have to stop right there because that is a terrible name.

"Guys? We're on... Mini-Vivaldi Isles? What the heck is that supposed to mean? If you're gonna be that weird about it, just name yourselves _Vivosaur_ Island or something, gosh!"

My best friend sputters off into a round of giggles. "Diiiinooo, there's already a Vivosaur Island!"

"Then let's just call it Vivosaur Island the Second! There you freaking go! Problem freaking solved!"

Raptin has hardly anything of note to add, probably because the name is so stupid that there isn't even much of a clever comeback for it, so he just stands there and shakes his head severely—when something glints in the corner of his eye and he halts with a soft intake. "Dino, Jkonna. She has... returned." Pointing vainly out at the blob of white light just up ahead.

To our backs lies the shore, and ahead starts a small cluster of houses, all on the right, a hard-packed dirt road all that leads up and past it. Trees, scattered about, flutter in the warm breeze, and grass whistles between bursts of wind, and little flowers twirl and dance and I think I hear the soft cries of vivosaurs in the sky somewhere above.

And there she is, in the midst of it. A hand bestows and she waits as we awkwardly scoot closer, as we convince ourselves to go a little faster, a little faster, until we're there up in front of her. Standing there then... it's funny, just how short she is. Shorter than Rosie—Rosie's taller than Jkkie. Someone else. Some silhouette of a girl. I wonder if it's a silhouette of a real one.

Turning tail, she darts off, and we go after. It's not much of a stroll to where she wants us next; just off in front of the first house she halts, and the three of us soon after. We're all quiet, swallowing half of the breaths that come up in our throats. A-At least... I am. Hey... speaking of tail, when she turns the right way—like the curves—are those... is that... _is_ that a tail? But then she turns off again and I can't tell, it all smushes together in a forward-facing girl. Her left arm goes pointing at the door of the house... and that's that. We look back and she's gone.

"Huh," mumbles Jkonna. Her mouth's like half open, eyes in a daze.

We're all quiet then, for a moment, until Raptin ventures to ask: "So we knock on the door, then, and introduce ourselves to the person or persons inside? O-Or whomever it is waiting for us."

Quiet again. I literally have one thought in my brain. "What if Dina's in there."

"Yeah, well." My best friend huffs softly. "What if she's not. Diga-Don't get your hopes up, Dino. We already diga-determined that there's no ancient in here... and last we saw of her—er, you guys—she was... possessed by one, wasn't she? Just... be careful."

"Then maybe she's not possessed anymore." Oh. B-Be still, my stupid heart.

Jkonna closes her eyes, her face screwed up slightly. "We diga-don't know that, Dino. We just... diga-don't. She might be... might not be. Let's go with a probably not, as to not kill ourselves in hope." And I... I know she's right, but I can't help it... I know, but... but it's what I want to be true, and—and that's how it was, wasn't it, back when I was in the orphanage, when I first came up there. I wanted it to be true that I was also an orphan, that I hadn't a dad or a sister or any dinaurians to worry about, that it was just me and my dead parents, and then it was, and I believed it and everything and—and I...

At some point my head must've fallen, because here I am, staring at my mucky feet. I start at the warmth on my shoulder and then I—and then I realize that it's a large, scaled hand... Raptin's. "We are close, either way. If not here, then perhaps the next island, or the next island..." A soft shadow of a smile on his face.

"Heheh. You're stealing my lines, Rapty." Small doff of his head, but he doesn't stop himself from murmuring them again, then.

So here it is. We all try to steel ourselves and I'm sure I didn't do a good enough job, just wait and see when I get up there and open the door, but we go on anyways. Jkonna's the one who steps forward, the one who gently rats her knuckles against the dark wooden door, the one who holds her breath and waits to be addressed first. We stand by her like bodyguards, one tall scaly boy on either side, and she must see it too because there's a giddy laugh—bordering hysterical—that rattles out her throat like a flood.

She slams her hand over her mouth as a soft _ccccrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr_ and a patch of shadow signals the opening. A slim face pokes back at us, pale and thin and... wow, she's small. Just above Jkonna, but Raptin and I both have good inches on her. And behind her, heavyset, darker tan skin, but nowhere near Jkonna's, this freakishly burly guy lies, arms folded in front of his thick, corded chest.

She's dainty in her little white dress. He's in camouflage pants, one of those thin tank tops that guys working out wear, or whatever. I never work out s-so I wouldn't know.

It's hard to remember that I have vivosaurs and I can turn _into_ one if the situation calls for it. While so severely different everywhere else, each of them hold these beady, dark eyes that penetrate through my soul cleanly... and I think I'm scared. I'm scared and they haven't done anything but _look_ at me.

From somewhere behind my back, Jkonna grabs my hand and squeezes, once, twice, three times. "H-Hi," she starts, a flush coating her cheeks. "Um... I-It's nice to meet you, I—"

"Todd?

We all take a moment to stare, pretty bewildered, at the lady in the front. Her gaze, glassy, widens, and her lips cup the name as if it's as needed as her heart and she asks it softly again. "Todd..?" And of course we have absolutely nothing to say to that because I mean... _Todd_? Who's _Todd_? Oh, geez, oh, geez, was it a bad idea to listen to the girl...

When the man stirs then. "Excuse m'wife." Thick, corded accent, about as cold as that dead gaze of his. "We sent our son off to the Caliosteo Isles some time ago—this odd island with a tournament up north of here"—point to our right—"haven't seen him since. He never sent letters back, never made an effort to call, never nothin'." A mustache, thick and blonde, curls around his lip as he sneers. "We thought we raised him right, too.

The eyes slowly stroll back to Jkonna. "Y'look like you could be friends of his. Bout his age, bout his size. Ya heard anythin' from him?" The father even steps toward the door and sticks out his arm again, pointing to our right. "Back there, the helicopter took them. Course, it was far from out here, some few hours by port, but it was round yonder."

For a second there I swear I think I see the glowing girl again, and I think I see her pointing right too.

Oh geez. I feel the tremors in Jkonna's hand as her eyes go blank and she squishes her lips together. My heart's racing. Raptin's completely uncomfortable, he's making that face he makes when someone confronts him, and it's not even him that the guy directed his voice at. Because that's... that's it! D-Do we lie? Do we pretend we know who his son is and try to get in on him or... or do we tell them no, we don't know a Todd, sorry?

Well. Jkonna's obviously not gonna respond, and I doubt Raptin would either.

It's funny. I know she'd lie about it. She's just like that, Jkkie, it's how she is. She doesn't trust people, which I get, but she seriously doesn't. And I can't even imagine what Raptin would do if he got forced into this.

So I swallow. And I breathe. And I breathe. And I squeeze my hand entwined with Jkonna's and I start. "Umm... s-sorry, no, we don't, um... We don't know a Todd." Alright, here goes. Don't screw this up. "I'm... sorry to ask, s-sorry"—my friends are all so nervous they haven't even tried to tell me off for this—"but... ha-have you ever heard of a girl by the name of Dina? We're, um... we're looking for... for a..."

I lose my voice at the change overcoming them after that one little word.

Like a tide, the faces crumble and instead of mock kindness the skin sort of starts to ooze and stretch and pinch and pull flat and those thick, gray eyes deepen and widen until great pits of pupils stare back at me, all directed at me.

The lady giggles. Tiny, tiny pitches of laughter, things that come from the stuff of... of nightmares, if I'm honest here.

"Dina? Ohhhh... you mean that bitch."

 _Oh._ Oh my gosh.

I'm relieved but—but it—but _she—_

"You're right, you're aaaabsolutely riiight..." Her words slow and flow like putty into her hands, stretching, pulling, squeezing, thick. "She's the reason he's gone, iiissssn't sheeeee?" Honeyed whispers hollow out into murmurs, to lulls, to heavy silence.

And then it all comes down.

"OF COURSE IT WAS HER! THAT SLUT KILLED OUR SON! THAT SLUT CHANGED HIM, THAT TERRIBLE TERRIBLE BITCH IS THE REASON HE'S GONE! SHE TOOK HIM AND SHE STOLE HIS SWEET, PRECIOUS, BEAUTIFUL SOUL AND SHE MARTYRED IT WITH HER VERY OWN FUCKING HANDS! WE NEVER SHOULD'VE RAISED HER, ALL WE FUCKING DID FOR HER! NEVER SHOULD'VE LET HER BE ANYWHERE NEAR TODD! WHAT A BITCH! WHAT AN ASSHOLE, THAT FUCKING GIR—"

 _KUMCHHHGHHHHH_.

There is now a very ugly hole in the middle of the door.

I'm not sure if it was his fist or her head that dented it in there but there it is.

The silence afterward is so loud that I feel like my ears are bleeding. And I check, even, with a twitching hand, but... but they're not.

Thomas silently observes the situation and announces, voice soft enough only I catch it, _There is evidence of an ancient living in their house, once. That must be what happened to them._

And then it makes sense. And I wish it didn't but it... but _then_ it makes sense.

Wheezing laughter slowly, slowly directs my attention back to the lady, most notably the side of her head that is now very casually coated in blood. Dribbling down strands of short, cropped brown hair and a lean cheek and down again, dipping into the slip of her neck and cradling her collarbone.

None of us have a hint of a word to say to that. There's this thick, choking lump in my throat and I can't feel my face but for gaping, wide eyes. I try to say something, try to think of something to say, and then I stop; and then I try again and nothing comes to me and I stop again and by this point the man behind her's strode his way forward, shoving her thin and frail body into the door a second time to wham his bulging fist into—into my—

into my face.

I'm not sure why he aims for me first. Maybe because my height's so specifically aligned to his fist that he pulls back and fires with maximum power, without a single alteration and and there it's done, the deed is done.

All I do know is that the sky pitches back and bright, pulpy red streams through my vision and I blink and I blink and I blink and I feel tears well up somewhere in the corner of my skull but all I see is thick gloppy red and I look and I blink and I turn and thick thick strands of gloppy gloppy red and it's such a deep, dark crimson, like the ocean is dying, like the world is dying and all I'm doing is sinking, sinking into this aching puddle of pain.

A hand on my shoulder. I feel the hand and I feel the shove but it's not a shove that breaks skin and I—and I don't think it's supposed to be and I feel my head come up from the bloody waters and a gasp tosses me back and the hand shoves me forward and I'm... I'm running. They're... helping me run. And I'm running and they're running and I don't feel another fist meet my skin, I don't feel any more pain other than the slowly receding throbs in the midst of my head.

Wet hot tears wipe at the sea in my skull. Like water on paint color weakens, and weakens, and it doesn't take so long for red to be replaced by luscious green and brilliant blue and a calming beige all around me. Up ahead red streaks intensify and bind with hints of orange and brown to create the supple form of someone I know. Behind and beside me, in the corner of my not bloodied eye, I catch faint hints of teal, and sharp yellow eyes, and... and my legs almost give out what with the relief.

It's not a hand. I slowly come to terms with the clawed paw that strokes me onward.

No wonder... No wonder it's all so fast. He... He turned to...

He saved me. Probably saved Jkonna too.

Oh my... _gosh_... he saved me... I swallow and I try to stifle the dull throbbing that blocks out so many of my thoughts, but still it's hard to keep up with reality and register that life is still going on until I hit the waves and there she—there she is, her finned body emerging from crystalline waters, the strangest look in her otherwise hard stare.

Con—Concern.

I've never seen Droplet look so—

And then a wave hits me as does a paw beckoning and Raptin morphs back into his dinaurian form and secures his hold on drooping me and Jkonna leaps up in front and Droplet swims at speeds I'm pretty sure she isn't supposed to be able to do.

When it—Oh yeah—Ancients. Thomas. Iggy. Reserves. Whatever it... _that_.

It's freakishly quiet for some time. With one shaking, shaking hand I cup salty water from the ocean and start to lead it up toward my eye when Raptin slaps it out of nowhere and I lose my hold. I think I hear his voice, rumbles on the horizon, but not quite wording, not quite anything. Salt, I hear _salt,_ like, three times, and _do not_ , and... and that's it, that's all I can discern. My head hurts too much for anything else.

Lone. Her tiny purple form situates itself on my leg and Raptin raises my hand to her side and she spurts little bursts of water into it, and then Raptin leads, and then finally the dried residue of blood disappears from my sight.

This whole time, not a word is spoken. It's... so still. The waves peeling about us as Droplet's strong fins dip out and through them. Hard slaps of surging muscle. Jkonna's hair whipping from side to side in the wind kicked up by the utter speed. Raptin's soft breath by the back of my head.

Not a word. Not a voice. Not a life stirring.

I swallow hard. Another jerk of tears, I feel it pulling, pulling... but nothing comes out. A hard intake. Release. I close my eyes. I hang my head. I rest it in a palm. I try not to think too hard about what went on and I just breathe deep, gentle breaths for some time and I stay like that until I trust myself enough to muster what little strength inside of me remains. And with that I swallow a second time, and I wet my cracked and sort of iron tasting lips and I croak like half a word and I stop and then I try again.

"Why'd—Why'd you... hit my hand... Raaaaapptin..?"

He flinches at my name. I feel it jolt through the krona beneath us, and through his leg resting against one of mine. "You heard none of—ahh, it is no matter. Dino, you were about to pour _salty seawater_ into a gaping wound. Your eye is... so very swollen. And most of the blood has ebbed and the wound is beginning to, ah, scab—excuse the indecency of it—so it should be fine now, but that would have... _Dino_..." Breathing heavily at the stupidity that is Dino.

"Heh... oh yeah, I forgot about that..." And I hear him exhale slowly after that, and I giggle weakly. It hurts somewhere in my brain to laugh but I do it anyways.

Jkonna's hand pulls back from where she sits and she has to grope around for a moment to find mine, but when she does she squeezes it really tightly, and then I feel her sigh too, just like Raptin. "You diga-didn't even try to get out of the way." She's muted, but I think I feel a bit of a laugh hiding in there.

Makes me smile. "Yeah, well." I have to swallow and focus on breathing for another moment there. My head's throbbing bad... but it's dying out some too. "I don't... I don't know. I sorta blanked out. The, um... the whole... situation was pretty spooky."

"You gave me a heart attack," she grumbles.

"Heeey, you don't have a right to say that." I play a little with her fingers. "I gave myself one first."

She snorts at that.

They start to relax, though, the both of them, after hearing me speak again. It doesn't take too long for someone to throw a smart remark at Raptin and for Raptin to try one back, but his comebacks are usually pretty bad, so it's just funny, stupid funny. We don't even talk about what happened, just sweet little nothings, meaningless happy.

It's Raptin who's first to broach it, in the end. "Dino... you do recall that the strange mother and father with the strange son who was not present most, um, most evidently knew Dina at one time."

Well. We'd have to get to it at some point. And I mean... it's important to question it. That was _pretty_ spooky.

"Y-Yeah." I breathe, swallow, wet my chapped lips. My hand, in Jkonna's, casually begins to shake again. "That's where we're going. Where the... Where they said their son went. Cuz they said he knew Dina... that she... what was it? Martyred him?"

"You say that so easily," mutters Jkonna, whipping her head back again, "like it's 'walked diga-down the street' or 'made a birthday cake'."

My eyes close. I feel my heart beating down somewhere in me. Slowly, gently. "Yeah. That's cuz I don't really think they were in their right minds."

"But what if she diga- _did_ martyr him?"

"Jkonna." Small smile. "Don't tell me you believe that. I mean—I guess the whole thing is something to consider, since they apparently knew my sister at one point... but I dunno. They looked pretty messed up to me."

Also, I say without saying, but all of us know, if I give in and believe that whole thing now, then it's like... it's over. That's it. My sister's a monster and this whole journey is for nothing.

"Hey, Jkkie, you said you saw her once."

She pauses. "Oh... right. I guess I diga-did. She diga-didn't look all that bad off."

"Then... maybe it's fine." Hey, I'll take whatever works. I don't wanna doubt Dina. I want to... I... d-dang it, I want to be _there_ for her, like I was _supposed_ to be all those years ago. It's like it's... it's my birthright to be there and I want to reclaim that place, if... if she'll let me. I miss her, like my dad missed us before I came back on my own. Now we miss her together.

I want to be a brother again. I want to be a good brother. A... A caring brother. A nice brother. A funny brother. Whatever it takes, that's who I... that's who I want to be. I want my sister... I want Dina.

My best friend eventually responds. She's quiet when she does. "Yeah. Maybe it is."

 **Heheh, that was... wow!  
Does anyone remember the Huricans and Mini-Vivaldi Isles? Man, I named both of those things back when I first started writing some three and a half(?) years ago!**

 **Oh, the Huricans... wouldn't be the same unless Dino got to meet the parents who, uhh, _raised_ his sister, huh, heh.**

 **But what's left then? (And yep! The hill mentioned is the one Dina brought up in her memories!)**

 **That was a fun chapter to write for some reason, I was excited to... reintroduce the Huricans xD I don't know, maybe because it reminds me of back when I started this series...**


	31. Rt: Forsaken Safety

**Mier: so anyways**

 **Rupert: what is it now**

 **Mier: ow, snarky much**

 **Rupert: -stifled wince-**

 **Mier: haha... haaah...**

 **Mier: I was just gonna mention that things are about to get worse**

 **Rupert: ...they seem to have a tendency to**

 **Mier: yep... pretty much**

 **Todd: awwww, that's not truueee!**

 **Rupert/Mier: -share glance-**

 **Mier: no, it is**

 **Todd: no it's not**

 **Mier: … well I'm not gonna argue with an idiot**

 **Todd: optimist**

 **Mier: ...idiot**

 **Todd: PESSIMIST, YOU**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 31: Forsaken Safety

 _Rupert_

Some few days pass. Remote. Quiet. Peaceful, if it can be labeled so. Peaceful in any comparison to what our lives have become in the meantime... though of course this "peace" cannot last for long. It would be so easy to wish for the ancients of this world to quit spinning their fateful wheel and allowing their numbers to soar, if only the havoc they caused were to subside.

Wishful thinking, of course. Nothing but idle, fluffy thoughts. Weightless to their core.

But I like to think that it would have stayed quiet, had Zongazonga never existed, had his daughter never been born. Had she not lived thus far as to grace us with her presence, to demand herself upon us. To be... who she is, I suppose.

I ask this in vain. Ancients are very much real, most especially the ones who so smuggled themselves into my life. Somehow this does not halt me, however it is. Somehow—it is like I find that while the odds against our tiny lives are unwavering and high enough to crush us with a foreleg... like I am blind to these fears and reasonable fancies. I have yet to know whether this shall reveal to be an act of bravery or stupidity or perhaps neither, or perhaps both.

Funny... is it not? Well there it is, and there it goes, and I let it slip between uncaring hands.

 _Rupert?_

My musings pause. I turn back from the window, leaving the vague reflection and thick white piles of snow behind to glance back at a certain seismo. His form, kept miniature to allow usage of the cabin hallways and corridors, tilts, and his head cocks back at me, the violet eyes nervous and bright. _Rupert, lad... what's so funny?_ And the way he asks it, fumbling accent and all, warms my numb fearing heart for some few moments.

Gentle Pippy awaits, and I answer him accordingly. _Premonition. So strong are the ancients and yet none of them dare strike this cabin. Wooden, easily perishable by fire, or enough water, or enough air—or truly enough of anything. And here it stands. Did you ever wonder, Pippy, how few buildings these days are built directly from so much wood? Usually stone is a main source. A rather strong one, very sturdy, not as easily knocked over by nature's forces._

 _M-Mmmmm..!_ His squeak reveals how little he comprehends. _Wood, Rupert, wood!_ Head bobbing weakly. _A-Are you saying we're in danger? You dare not suggest s-something bad, d-do you!_

A soft smile touches my lip as I shake my head, turning back to the window. _Pippy, I did imply that is where my feelings stand. It is fine—_ I brush off his quaking— _do not let your apologies overcome you. I simply wonder how a cabin so admittedly flimsy as this lasted for... so long. Mier never spoke of leaving his cabin._

My reflection watches back. The eyes, I note, have lost their filter. Bright yellow, dull yellow, so in tune with the heart beating inside of me I find myself stupefied. With my worries there is lackluster shining and as I strive to remember myself the gaze reflects that, and tiny details in the face lighten with them.

It feels... strange, to be so open. Different. C-Certainly different.

And the scars of course. The thin line caking my cheek, the faint scratches down my neck, partially covered by shadow and sweater alike—and beneath that my old coat, with the blue collar about the neck, lays a ring furthest up my throat. So long ago did I wear that on top of all else...

"Yeah, Mier _did_ never speak of leaving is cabin. Hmmmm... Maybe it's because he hardly ever did? He never _moved_ to or from his cabin, that much I can vouch for. But who knows for sure."

A vain grin presses my lip and I turn strictly toward the window, murmuring, "Hello, Mier," as he strides on by. And he pauses, then, as he passes, and I feel his arm brushing against one of mine and I sense the slight shift of laughter in his tone.

"Things have been quiet. So you noticed."

My gaze grows quiet in the reflection of the glass. "Well... y-yes. Especially after the, um, run-in with Illit. Mier... you once told me that Illit..." A idle finger traces at the ends of the window, faintly rubbing against smooth bark. "...was very powerful. She alone was a force to be reckoned with. And thus... ancients stayed away. They... sense power, do they not? They sense the expunging of energy, especially in such great amount." Waves and waves of influence, rippling and ever-flowing like the sea...

I sometimes wondered how long it went, when I was a child, and I rode in my father's helicopter with him. I would watch it sway far, far beneath us. And I saw ever so many islands and ever so many faces and... somehow those never stayed with me quite like the waters.

Well. There must be breaks in it somewhere. I do wonder if anyone has ever gone through it, and who went the furthest.

If they wore faces of bravery or idiocy on their way out.

"Rup—Heey, Rupert. If you're gonna bother to ask a question, at least pay attention to my answer."

"A-Ah! My apologies." Pippy giggles timidly by my foot, and without thinking much of it I stoop over and scoop him into my arms, to where his head pokes out back at Mier. My friend watches me over the seismo, a strange light toying in his eyes, one that flickers and flows in between quietly.

"Weeelll, the thing is..." His lip curls, and I believe there is joy playing in his head. "She's gone now. And so is all her power. So therefore..." One hand raises to point at the ceiling. There it cups into the slight resemblance of a reptilian head and snatches shut at the wood above.

I turn back toward him. My stomach is cold. "And you say this with a smile on your face? _Mier_ , this could be—"

He shrugs and butts into me. "Yeah." Just like that. "Where else are we gonna go though?"

Oh. Oh... Where else is there? _Leave_ Nomadistan? We could leave, but what use is there in leaving, and where would we go—the lot of us—afterward? Besides, if the ancients plan to gather here and wreak whatever almighty tension that has been anchoring them for weeks, so far as we can tell, to here... There is no reason to think others will not be hurt. At least here in the wilderness it is merely us. And—And my... father. Last I saw of him.

"Y-You still could have told us. Before we were left without choice to receive whatever it is that comes after us next." Because now all there is left is to... watch our cover get blown.

He muses this. Mier. But he has little response to make. "I could've. Kinda... too late now." Not... carelessly, though it comes off rather so, there is a knot of idleness left in his words, an airy sense that his actions do not matter anyways, that it would have always been this way... But would it have? There is—There is no way to know now, but...

My grip tightens; quickly I drop Pippy and let him land somewhat-nimbly but rather lopsided on the floorboards.

"Of... course." I swallow. "I-I suppose it matters not now." Which is... true. Which is true...

"Yeah. I just... I get this _feeling_ that soon it'll..." The golden eyes shift and he pauses there, lips held agape but slightly, and my heart tugs and I think—I think there is something he just realized he should have said or should not have said and I think—I think maybe this is where he goes back to what he did and I—and I am wrong, as the eyes slowly... slowly turn to the window behind my head. "Whoa... What's—

Pause. "Rupert, look at that." And I turn quickly and trip over my cast trying to face the bloody window and my forehead hits a wall and I cease, wincing, and I cannot look at the window then. My eyes eventually falter their way up and there it—there it— _what is—_ what is—but before I get enough of a glimpse at it the illusion fades and leaves naught but a frosty white atmosphere left to be dealt with.

Mier steps closer to me, one soft touch on the floorboards—one soft _creeeaaaahhk_ alighting us. "I think it was... a figure, of sorts. I'm not sure. I think I saw a hand... pull out of it, and the hand sort of... beckoned. Toward it. Toward the... outside."

And there we stay quiet in pondering because there are so many things this figure Mier saw could be, and one of those more alarming possibilities is an _ancient_ , of course.

"Was it... not merely enough snow tossed in the wind, or a strange cast of light, or a shadow, or—"

"Maybe. But I don't think so."

 _No. I don't think so either._

A sudden chill scrapes down my spine and I dip into the earth, my face... burning. A glance back at my friend and his face mirrors mine, a pallor thickening as his eyes, widening and widening with the seconds, slowly crawl up toward the ceiling he so pointed out but minutes ago. That voice... That voice was rasping, quiet, like a limping old lost cause, and—and yet it... it was so loud. My head shakes from that voice and its tiny little sound.

"Was that—"

Resolve tightens around Mier's face as a finger cups my lips and he shakes his head firmly. I swallow my voice and he hovers there by my side for a moment, glancing pallidly back at the ceiling, like that is _exactly_ where it came from, and then he lowers his hand to take mine and then we go. His gait has to slow to accommodate my cast.

I want to say my foot will be healed soon but I truly do not know here... and that being said, if I am not careful...

Pippy strides after us, fear quickening his bulky structure. A turn through the bedchambers and out doors and frantic searching and it does not take very long at all for the semi-groggy others of our ragtag team to recover. Some inside, some out at the porch, some resting, even still. Vivosaurs accommodate easily; some must have been out and had seen it coming first.

Soft, soft footsteps jar our every movement and slam into us freely, like rocks, like stones, like little balls of hatred incarnate rolled up and tossed with one's every bit of might. The silence is worse than the sounds, the freakish quiet of Todd and his large, searching eyes, the way Luk cups his face and half-swallows his sneeze, the Pauleen I once knew stuffed deep inside of her and leaving behind naught but a strict, powerful stead.

Dinu keeps Zoazoa clasped tightly to her side, and her haughty eyes follow wherever the pale ancient's go.

However long it feels, Trikko reassures me that our escape came and went in seamless, soundless seconds. Enough time for the ancient perhaps searching for the best place to strike to stick a sharp, angular face through that one part of the ceiling, bark splintering and cutting and oozing in fresh wounds, only for there to be no prize morsel left inside.

My heart is overcome by a trill. And my... my head spins. Under the cover of darkness—a shadowy, liquid night plain overlapping our small, tight-knit group—quiet movement proceeds. The slow, careful sliding and dipping between pieces of poorly-placed light give the impression of unwanted presence. Hiding. Hushed. So long as we remain neglected we remain safe.

Funny.

Mier is hesitant to slacken his grip on mine even slightly, and those bright golden eyes prod for me in the bleak splotch of shadows beside him, like he only thinks I am still here, like he expects me to try and slip away. A strange bubble of fear leaves his gaze wide and vulnerable, and his lips are pressed thin. Soft, wet breaths fall and rise in between his wild expression.

He must feel my concern. He must sense it caking, and crashing, waking, against him. But he ignores it, anyways, with a furtive eye to detail, taking care to shrug off my feelings. Why does... he do that? Does he think, after so many years, after living with an ancient under his skin... that his reasoning is always the most stable? That he is... the most close to always being right?

Perhaps he has been. Before.

But now he blocks me out without a thought toward it. Blocks everyone out. At least with an immortal host in his body he was forced to stay present, at one point. Mier... And though the force of the others pulls against me and I feel Luk follow near me in little bursts of moments, so long as he can manage it, I find myself unable to resist the tension that pushes me in the other direction, his hand a vice tight around my wrist. Checking often, in expectation of my leave.

Breaths come short and breaths leave shortly. As the movement wears on it grows increasingly difficult to breathe and I—and I try to ignore the sudden throbbing that bursts out upon my foot, a weak reminder aching throughout the tendons and joints and veins of my leg. Sweat streaks cold past my cheeks and I catch in snippets of sudden release—downhill, further off—the sensation that a pulsing in my skull weakens and weakens until it practically peels out and off of me.

Like a hand gripping me by the back of the head... as I duck and slip past, the feeling dies. My heart I feel soften, my breaths more easily accumulated until, oh, finally, someone ahead falters and Mier puts a halt to his footsteps and the freedom is immediate.

Todd crashes to the snowy ground and sucks deep, long breaths through his trembling system. He runs his fingers through his unruly mass of brown hair and whimpers silently. "W-Woowww... that was... that was..." His voice, once so warm and thick now a wispy rasp of its former self. Sound hardly filters his words.

"Are... Are we safe now?" Luk gently eases his goggles off of his face—where they did not lie, his skin burns of rash. "What the heck was that..? Wh-Why did it... Why did we..." He eventually lowers his head and pauses for some time, drips of sweat streaming like tears past his eyes.

Pauleen appears the least winded. She glances from crestfallen face to crestfallen face and remarks, a grim look twisting her lip, "We should stay quiet. I diga-don't have a good feeling about this." And even Mier, who I... admittedly have looked up to for so long... even he cannot speak he has so winded himself.

Of course, Pauleen is at least partially under possession at all times now. She harbors an advantage that the rest of us simply lack. Vivosaurs, scattered in small clusters about us, vary in state, though the majority boast of healthy complexion and almost silent breathing.

My cousin remains silent, Zoazoa still as tucked under her arm as she was before. But then there is nothing else to say, and those who did offer an opinion are without heart to do so again now, and I could hardly hear even if one did by how thick my own gasping breaths are—tears biting my eyes—and this wet silence remains until she sees reason to break it. And she does, slowly flipping her thin, blonde hair over the side of her slick face. "So now we're screwed."

"I-I..." Todd winces, his face shimmering. "I wouldn't... ca-call it screwed..."

"I would." Her lack of expression stays stubbornly strong. The other possessed ancient remains sullen and quiet, her large, dark eyes hardly straying from one mound of snow on the earth. Unlike Pauleen, her condition reveals a weak, sickly form. Coughs, quick in succession, pellet out of her tiny chest, and I witness the latter few rounds coax little droplets of blood, staining her lips red.

Zoazoa lifts a numb, pale hand and covers her face. Her eyes remain sullen, sparked by a notion of fear.

We all must be staring at her. Even Mier, as he recovers, turns to face her, his eyes narrowed. Todd pulls himself from the ground in a slight mess still and hovers by Luk, who nods gently toward him, and Pauleen rounds over to shadow behind our sides. She reveals nothing as to how the chill in the air affects her utter lack of reasonable winter garb.

A faint, sharp shard of pity burrows into my heart. I try to ignore my prickling discomfort, slowly surmounting any other and I recognize that stare in her face as something so _almost_ akin to _hers_ and it... it is so strange, to see it mirrored again.

And I fight a growing need to take her in. To hold her. To warm her with my own body.

Because I know it's not her but... but even so... even still...

She is a _part_ of her.

"A-Ah." The gaze widens. Dinu turns immediately and I would have thought Zoazoa reacted to nothing so strange as I do when my cousin loses the color in her face. "Oh." A curdling white strains her face and as her hand flutters weakly to her side the blood stands pronounced at her lip, the scarlet reminder a throbbing bright intensity to the snow and the white, white face outside of it. "That's... That's not... That's..." And confusion slowly paints her face, and bewilderment—and then—sharp—hot—burning recognition.

She is terrified.

"NO! NO, YOU CAN'T DO THAT, NO!"

Without another word she turns and wriggles out of Dinu's grip, bolting back so quickly I lose her... I try to turn to catch a glimpse of what she saw but Mier tugs me back and I only manage to wrench my gaze for a split second at the opening and—and I missed it, missed it completely. Nothing left but patchwork shadows and some piece of this missing entity leaves my heart aching.

Dinu tosses a scowl in the general direction of her departed friend and mutters "Dammit" two or three times, a foot kicking into the snow as she says it. Her lips tighten and the eyes grow heavy, murderous, thick, and then before I can ask my cousin what the two of them saw she darts off as well, slower and much more awkward than the ancient but with a sort of determination like a blade in her gaze that I dare not doubt her.

 _Well... fuck. Now what?_

I wince. _Torn, could you tell what it was?_ If anything, perhaps he can be of use here.

But I am wrong. _Um, no. It looked like a... like a shadow? A wisp? Maybe it was snow, I can't really fucking tell. I'm not cut out for that shit, right? I'm better at... yelling at other people. Yeah, that. Like you. For being in love with Dina. But anyways, I guess that's not of any use here._ And eventually his thick amethyst eyes glance at his best friend, but Trikko is as unsure in himself as the dimetro, and so it is left at that there.

One of the vivosaurs comes up with the idea to revert back to their medals, to save energy in case of whatever comes next, and so that is taken upon them and then it is merely the rest of us who remain. Weakly breathing, softly thinking. There is the possibility of waiting, for the two to return, for... for the ancient to come back, and my breath hitches there and I fitfully shake my head to myself and I decide that no, I do not want the ancient to come back, dear goodness, not again, and in my sense of unsure disbelief I go off after them, after Zoazoa, after Dinu... and it just feels right in the moment.

Waiting. I've waited months.

Years. I've waited years. Years for someone else to save me for I could not save myself, for I myself was such a weak person for so long, and so long ago I started waiting and I cannot wait any longer, for if I continue to wait I fear I will lose my mind, my heart—my—my... I already lost Dina. I already lost the reason any of my life became even an ounce of meaning to me.

I am tired of waiting. Of biding my time. Of letting shadow monsters whose lives far surpass my own stringing my puppet soul to their bidding. I am tired of tyranny and tired of running away and tired of letting other people carry me when all I ever wanted was to find the power inside of me to stand up on my own.

Well. A weak laugh bubbles in my throat but so much of my breath is expressed in maintaining this speed that I cannot expunge it—which is fine. There will be a time.

Zoazoa. She must be up here somewhere. Up at this point, only so much further ahead, the trees thicken again but soon diverge and then there is a hill leading up to slopes leading up to rocks and boulders and what must be the making of a small mountain up there. She is not senseless enough to transform and leave Dina behind—so she would be forced to go around the mountain.

What did she see? What weakened her so readily and scared _Dinu_ so greatly as for her to lose control of herself for some time there? Dinu... Dinu is strong. Dinu is brash and rational and stoic and I am none of these things and... I admire how easily she grew close to the ancient girl. I-I wish, in some vain way, I wish I knew how to, I wish I had, for if she liked me, this twisted piece of Dina, if she... if she...

I miss her, is all. As I have for so long now.

In truth, I have lost track of how long it had actually been. In truth, I feel the years pass beneath my skin and in truth I know, I know that perhaps _a_ month has toiled by relentlessly in my precarious health and my precarious state, my fears coming to life and every day fooling me into another living nightmare, and in truth nothing has changed but for one insignificant person. But in my heart it has been years. In my heart it has been decades, in—in my heart it has been eons.

My cold, cold fingers clench. I will not let it be eons any longer.

Where is she? How is she so... so fast? She was by far the weakest out of all of us and she was at the back as we ran. There are no vivosaurs assisting her and Dinu is the only one who even likes her, if I am honest, and she was already exhausted just living the fractured, impaired life she has been living since she took over.

I pause. My hair whips past and at my face, white streaks making stripes with what little horizon remains behind it. Tiny dots of stars. A blank sky, lonely, dark... cold. Fingers slowly chapping, burning at the touch and so... so cold, my breath in frenzied billows about me.

When I glance back I note how... quickly all of this has gone through me. My friends still stand in a bewildered stance far behind, though I note that Luk and Mier certainly have begun off in my direction. I glance back, breathing heavily, and I think and I think for a moment this is already over when a hand, a ghostly little hand flickers along my vision and by instinct I turn left. There is no body alongside it and when I glance back there is no hand, either... but I saw it for a moment. I saw it again.

Is that what _they_ saw? Is that why Zoazoa ran? But... why, then? What is in a hand, a body, an ethereal body? Ahh... I do not know yet enough...

But that is all I allow myself to consider before I force myself moving again. Fingers frigid and face freezing, what tears biting in my eyes from the strength of the wind slowly icing over where they lie, I go on. My breath streams out in scrambling spirals and has dispersed in seconds after each lengthy exhale, the air I breathe in colder and colder each time. But I do not stop. No, I go on, and on, and onward because that ghost vaguely pointed left and I believe in whatever it has to show me. Perhaps I should not put so much faith into a mere hologram, but... there is something else to this hologram, a-a feeling... a feeling.

Like this hologram is no mere representation. I only wonder what it...what it means.

My path begins to diverge again: a knot of trees to my left, continue turning, now to the right around the hill, or straight, out in the open. Snow has begun to hail down upon me and clusters of it obscure my vision at a time, too much to tell my most probable destination and I keep moving in some form, what little warmth generated certainly playing a key role in my sustained consciousness. The hand eventually burns over these obstacles and leads right, slowly, slowly continuing on about the mountain approaching beside me.

An opening. It hits me, hot realization. An opening to the snowy form.

That must be where she has gone off to. Yes? With Dinu, no less. How I trust Dinu was able to find her...

Oh—There. I turn yet again and slip through a small portion of unprotected rock and the wind, so thick and heavy and laden with snow, oh, I leave the wind outside where it belongs. My eyes freely water and I sink to the cavern floor with a sort of gracelessness I may have cringed at did I care any longer about such things. Weak, wheezing inhales, coughs overwhelming my tender system. My head I rest in numb, wet hands. Heat slowly begins to crawl through my veins again.

While the chill is not entirely avoidable, I find myself able to freely move my fingers again and decide this satisfiable enough. Very. Gentle, cold fingers wipe back the mixture of sweat and snow melting off my cheeks and knotting in my hair and soaking my layers. Oh, if only I was... not so cold. A shiver bends me carefully into its hand and I twitch back in protest but of course it is no use. I still see my bloody breath every time I breathe.

 _I like how you kept running anyways, despite how many times I've chided you not to._

Ah. Gyntis. _You choose now, of all times, to quit your silence? And why is that?_ He had enough moments to force me back upon the path he considers righteous.

A small snort from my pale blue raptor. _You're sort of stubborn. Not like you'd listen to me, if you hadn't before._

 _Oh... I suppose that is true._

Another snort. _You suppose? Good to... freaking know._ I believe he has tired of me, my e-raptor. _Yeah, damn right I have._ Ah... of course. _No don't—gaah, whatever. Be that way if you want to. I don't care._ So he says in a quiet, guilty tone as his gaze refuses to leave the ground.

 _Rupert's... right._ Tessa. The pachy speaks next. _You're pretty stubborn yourself. He's just doing his thing._ I... cannot recall if she has ever taken my side before. _It's like you said yourself, fartbag. He always runs off. He did it when the Dina thing started to get to him, he did it when he got upset with Luk, I mean, heck, he did it back when he first lost his stupid girlfriend. It's... just how it is now. Too much weight on someone who's unable to keep pushing. Besides, he comes back._

Gyntis growls softly. _Of course. Because he comes back, it's fine. He doesn't come back every single fucking time._

 _No, it's—I mean, yeah, it's not fine, whatever, I get it, Luk hates it and all. But it's just Rupert's thing. It's gonna happen and you should shut up for once. Because it's not like your opinion's freaking_ king _or anything. Your opinion sucks!_ And Tessa bares her teeth at this, her body tensing somewhere deep inside. She... She knows Gyntis. I never thought much of it but she... knows him. She found him amusing and has attached herself to him, if but faintly.

I doubt he realizes.

 _Dammit, Tessa. He doesn't even rebuke any of it. Let him say something for himself for once. Geez._ His old, heavy, raspy voice shifts as he directs it toward me again. _So why do you do it again? Or are you gonna_ run awayagain _for it? You gonna run away from my question? Huh? Huh?_

I wince. _No—Gyntis, it does not work like that._

 _Of cooouurse not. Then how the hell does it work?_

Angry. He is... certainly angry. In his memories flick little moments of my stoic solitude built up from ignorance, from weakness, from fear. _Gyntis... I-I am not as strong as the rest of the world makes me. People... do that. They look at my so-called status and they find things in it that I never intended to put there—and perhaps that is my fault, for allowing them to see me in another light entirely. But I am as weak as you make me out to be. It... It is as Tessa said. It is... how I am._ She growls slightly at this, sounding rather... pleased with herself.

My lip has skewed somewhat. My eyes have closed. My head I tilt toward the ground and I stay like that for some time, breathing weakly, weakly, stronger, stronger. And Gyntis is quiet, too. For some time at least. _You're... a loser, you know that, Rupert? A real... freaking loser!_

 _I know._ As my voice grows stable, I begin to stand again. A hand shifts toward my pocket and I silently count the medals I find in it. _I could not even save the one I love most the time she most needed me._ Five. I search the second. _It... It is hard to comprehend such a thing. And I need to come to terms with it._ One, two, three... four, five... _That I am nothing of what vacant eyes see of me. They catch glimpses, they think, and... those are lies._

Gyntis's medal, number six, burns in my thumb and forefinger. _I am not cold, but... well, broken. And I am not a master fossil fighter, but... a confused, lost boy. And I—I am not... my father's toy... but my own person._ That makes her vivosaurs... and Pippy, and mine as well.

Something about the conversation tires me, and I consider for a moment halting my progress and resting again. But I think of the creature I saw who has led me thus far, and I think of how far I have come already, and I decide that momentary weariness will not stop me any further.

Gyntis thinks that running away makes me weak... His voice has gone silent in my head, and presently I wonder why; then I place his medal back in the pocket and when he remains silent I go on.

Dear Pippy, worried that the e-raptor has soiled any feelings I hold of myself, attempts to assure me that he thinks I am... cool. Like his fighter. The old one, the one whose identity I still pick up, like an object from a shelf, and wonder of its importance every once in awhile. Though not as often as I once did. It is... difficult to plague my mind with even more information of lacking importance and missing pieces. Like Zoazoa. Like Dina.

The others are quiet. Some converse amongst themselves. Most are simply quiet, perhaps in sleeping. They do have some certain confrontation ahead of them; I feel it, a nervous matter in the air. Though what it is I cannot say.

The white, glowing creature reforms itself whenever the opportunity presents itself—and I wait when it is slow to return and I have reached a branch in my path again. Everyone else is still somewhere behind me, and my stomach pinches when I consider the lead I must have on them that I absolutely forced upon them in my own thoughtless sort of way. Torn finds this amusing, though he has nothing to say about it, and Aladee if anything is merely pleased. He still has little opinion of Mier.

Oh, Mier. I wonder what sense of feeling overcame him when he so looked in my direction... but that I do not know either. So it goes.

Nyra murmurs a few little fluttering words, just softly, just momentarily. _Mmmf—do you feel... that?_

Gently I raise my head. The air is... is... lighter. _Lighter_. Warmer. Like another... presence came by. I think those on the ground are—footprints. Then that must mean—I must be—closer. Must be getting closer. A sudden renewed surge of strength overcomes me and my pace quickens until I reach the edge of the lip of the cavern, a small opening sprawling out ahead. Faint light emits from holes carefully punctured through the ceiling above, sparking dust and ice alike as they swirl throughout the chamber. And up ahead—just up ahead—lie the little huddled duo who escaped earlier.

My breathing softens while my throat grows hard. It... hurts to swallow. I try not to focus so much on that as I ease my way closer. To the sound of my feet, the cast a loud _DONK_ and the foot a soft _din_ , the head of my cousin turns and her fierce gold eyes face me.

I step closer. With her consent, eyes no harsher, sneer no angrier, I sit just by them. Her face slackens considerably. The lip curls. "She's scared, if you couldn't tell." A hot rasp against my ear, her forehead mere inches from my own. "Did you see that wisp thing?"

"O-Of course I did," I mumble. My lips are... cold. "I was there. I saw her t—"

"Shhhhhhhh." A lengthy hiss, painfully quiet. "She's _scared_ , you... idiot." Oh. My... My bad. Dinu tilts her head in the direction of her friend and the ferocity in her face weakens yet again. "Who was that? I think it... looked like a _girl_. Kind of." Oh..?

"A... girl?" I whisper. She must see the wonder on my face and nods once, twice.

The yellow irises dart back behind me. "Yes, a girl. I saw her turn. Sort of curved body." To my blush she snorts. "It's not like that, geez. It's... a hint of something there. A white shadow, or whatever. Jerk." Another snort—and then she chokes on her voice. "O-Oh. There she—"

Quickly I turn. And there _she_ is again.

Bowing but slightly toward the both of us, curls spilling out from the frame. A faint outline suggests the edges Dinu suggested as she turns and points vaguely back behind her, and then again as she turns back. As I observe her, rather much so, and I watch her pull her hands out toward us and faintly I catch the glint of tiny fingers. There is a trail of something else lining the white ends and it hits me and I gasp softly and no—no—that was _never_ white, not _white_ at all.

Silver. _Silver_ , which means—which _means—_

"Dina..?"

My voice, a pathetic peal to what it once was. My eyes, so great and wide, so light and open, so gentle. My beating heart wrenches in my chest and I cannot stay any longer so I stand and I slowly make my way toward her, this shadowy hint of a girl and—

"NO IT'S NOT!"

 _shhhHK—PAHH!_

A rock leaves its mark upon my back. Striking accuracy. A small bead of blood wells up where it struck.

Shifting. Someone else stands. The air crackles about her and she screams, "IT ISN'T! IT ISN'T IT ISN'T IT ISN'T IT ISN—"

 _ssHHHHK—_

Another rock scraped out of its hole. I swerve as it flies and it lands— _PUHHhhhh—_ somewhere in the dirt on the far side of the cavern.

My eyes, frantic now, delve into the figure. There she lies, hovering just by my chin, somewhat above—same height—a small hand raising to meet mine—same size—a sudden... smell wafting up toward me, soft and sweet and...

And... oh...

Her favorite color was always silver.

"Dina, is that really—"

The ominous scraping of another stone, a longer struggle to lift it, a longer wave of hesitation in the air, and the girl jolts in my grip and bolts back toward the entrance and it is all I can do to follow. The rock—more a monstrous conglomeration of many—lands somewhere behind me with a sickening _CLURHGCH_ and Dina stops then, and I after.

The figure glimpses toward me, a hesitant hand reaching, and then as I step closer again it dissolves, just so.

No more Dina. No more silvery little girl.

What was it my grandfather said about Zongazonga? What was it that occurred when Scatterly searched the tomes of the long-dead for information about that monster? Wait—no... no, it was something else... I think it was—

"RRRRR _RRRRRRrrrggGGggGGG_ GGGHHH!"

Another short jog back and I slam against someone else's body.

"Ah—" I try and turn out of their way only for a hand to yank mine back and look back upon him. Mier. My cheeks flush and I look away again. The quiet, guttural yelling from inside the chamber slowly raises, and raises, as do the footsteps growing louder with each step. Angry—no, no, infuriated—no... oh, that monstrous face as it peeks from around one of the boulders she tossed at me seconds ago.

My friend's eyes are unstable, from the situation now at my left to the boy he caught in his grip to his breath quickly spilling into the air and the slow, forced breathing he tries to offset his hyperventilating. I nervously bite at my lip, staring against the ground to Zoazoa to the ground again, to that haunted face and those haunted eyes and the shadowy ripples of flesh that cover a nauseating sense of fear.

This is no way to live. That is what she wanted, when she stole my beloved from this world. That is all she asked for: a life. But this... this is _not_ living, this is... this is wrong. This is... horrible. Depressing. Sad. My stomach feels weak... staring at her for so long and I glance away again only to catch Mier's face and he pauses upon me.

The grip tightens, if but barely. "Don't do that. Don't run. It's... stupid." A rash glance back at Zoazoa, his face contorted. "You'll just hurt yourself doing that. My... _gosh_ , Rupert. Don't make me worry like that."

Solemn, then. A quiet, solemn, passive expression.

"Make... you worry?" My voice is a slight rasp, painful to listen to.

"Of course make me... worry." A furtive glance toward me, then Zoazoa again. He is unable to remain calm when he looks back at she. "I'm not letting you get hurt after what you did for me. Not that you're making it easy. Heh..." For a second I catch his features lighten. Then the haze returns. "Everyone else should be here soon. We have to stay in a group or we're screwed, alright? Don't you... get that? People get split up and it's so easy to be picked off... one by one."

His hand squeezes mine again. I remain silent. O-Oh.

Swallowing, I venture, "I... think I saw Dina. The glowing creature—I think that is—"

"You don't know that." Simple finality. He plucks the possibility before I even prove it possible. "Could be anyone. Could be no one. Could be an ancient." Soft release of breath. "Don't assume, either."

But he just said last time—

I blush, squirming back from his touch. "Mier—d-do not tell me what to—"

His lip curves into a small frown. "I know what I'm doing, Rupert. You know that I know better than any of you what's going on here. I've been kept alive against my will for thousands of years now. There are some things you just don't—"

"Y-You spent most of that time in a cabin."

It is not often I go out of my way to... argue. It unsettles me. But... But this bothers me too. This... truly does bother me.

Slow inhale. "Rupert. Let me handle this." No room for difference of opinion in his suddenly stern face... but I never defied him before, so the chance never came up.

I fumble with words that stubbornly refuse to come as footsteps sound just off to the right, and there the other people I left behind arrive shortly—Pauleen, Todd, Luk... each expressing a slightly disconcerted feeling. My female friend has her arms trapped around her waist, Todd's fingers twisting meticulously around his dress, my old companion donning a vexed face.

Before any of them have the chance to speak, a certain blonde appears from beside Zoazoa and yanks her arms back, muttering, "That's dangerous, you idiot. Stop throwing rocks." This... does not sound very good at all to the arriving people.

Todd winces. "Wh-What's going on?"

"There's no ancients in here." Luk observes carefully the walls and the ceiling and any slight change in temperature. "I mean, besides her." Indicating the vague direction of where Zoazoa disappeared.

"And me." The pinkette beside him scowls. "Nnnngggg... When diga-do we fight already..."

"F-Fight?" Todd awakens at that. "D-Do we have to? I-I think we're all good, Pauleenie! I-I-I don't think I-I wanna—"

"Well we're inside of a mountain on the attempt of throwing some stupid ancients off our trail, I mean we're probably gonna fight, diga-don't you think!" A glint in her gaze goes deadly sharp. "Not like I like it either, but diga-don't you feel it? They're everywhere. They must be... going after Zoazoa. Remember that, digadig? It's... freaking happening."

I manage to find some word of value to say, and I glance back where everyone else is looking: that pocket of space Dinu and our said ancient just were, wondering wherever they lie now. "But... why would they? What is the purpose of that?" Mier has yet to catch on so if I can then I will—"You each saw the glowing creature, yes? Or if you did not see it then you heard it. Perhaps—Dinu and I were thinking"—credit—"perhaps she is—"

Mier seamlessly cuts me off. "He thinks it's Dina. Like _everything else_." A-Ah. That... That hurts...

"Hey, no... wait..." My heart throbs as I recognize that voice and I turn and... oh, thank goodness; Luk is on my side. "I—I dunno. I mean, he's done a lot of impractical things, don't get me wrong... but might he be right this time? If... Dina was trying to escape... _then_..."

"Then we would see her." My voice is a whisper of awe. "Then she would be trying to escape and we would—and we could see her. I would know. I was... possessed by her father, I would—"

Pauleen butts into the conversation, giddy. "Hey, I remember that! That was... so messed up! We thought we had Zongazonga all caught up but we'd really got _you_ and _he_ was _inside_ of you and freaking diga-Dina went missing around then cuz she also thought Zongazonga was you and... he like, kidnapped her, right? Anyways you had to get up there and that fight was insane!"

"Pfff, you only told like half of the story! You're missing all the details, Pauleen!" Todd cannot fight back a smile. "I remember that..! Maaaaan. Luk, you were there, right?"

Luk rests his face in a hand, though his grin still is revealed. "Todd, I was _not_ there. You chastise Pauleen on her terrible memory but you can't keep up either, huh. Wow, what a hypocrite." Rolls his eyes, too.

Throughout all of this, Mier has followed each speaker with a frantic alacrity. His face grows darker and quieter and eventually his fingers tighten around mine and he sighs softly. Quietly, so soft that the words delve like a layer beneath Todd's loud recounting of what _precisely_ happened that day, he murmurs, "Huh. Now no one's with me. This... sucks."

Unlike Dinu, he does not go on with any ploy to follow his own desire first and foremost. But he feels it. Head bowed, eyes closed, face expressionless and... weak. I remember, in a flash, I remember when my vivosaurs told me that I would have to work with Todd, with Luk, with anyone we could get our hands on and I could not see Dina again only on my own power, possibly ever again either way... and I remember how that tore me.

Because being wrong... is difficult. I-I have been wrong. I will be wrong. I will fail and I will succeed and... and sometimes it hurts too much to go on. To continue braving through so much hatred, so much failure, and I used to wonder if the mindless life I once ran was worth anything. Endless... like the waves in the ocean... right?

Well. I have changed, since then. I want to think I have changed.

"Mier," I whisper, quieter than the bickering that has ensued from Pauleen. "Mier"—again, for I was too quiet, I think. When he stirs and acknowledges my voice, I try and go on. "I... I am sorry we did not agree with what you thought. If... If it means anything, you are right about... safety, s-staying in numbers... in case anything happens."

"No—Rupert..." His lip twists. "It's fine. You don't... need to console me or anything. I'm not weak."

I suppose that logic makes me weak but th-that is fine, I go on anyways. "No, um... It is just that you were not there, I guess. You were still here when we all met. When we... met Dina. When we fought Zongazonga, when Zoazoa became a reality. You were... not there. Which—Which is fine. Luk was not around for much of it either, at the beginning. Like Todd mentioned... he did not join us truly until we lost Dina. He... met her, once. But that is... that is it.

"I just... um... I do not want you to let this... c-condone you. Or upset you. I-It is not your fault. It is... it is fine."

There is a slight silence before Mier loses his composure. "Pffff... My gosh. You can't even stay upset with me for two minutes." A lift to his head, which he manages to raise. His eyes open, soft gold. "Alright. Okay. You got me there, I guess... I'll get over it. Don't... worry so much about me. Just _do_ be careful. Seriously. I don't want you getting hurt, and I mean that."

I do nearly tell him—something—yes, perhaps—or that I will try my best again—th-that seems popular with me nowadays—but then a ragged, pale girl tears back from the rockslide so closely blocking off the chamber from this corridor and she bolts straight upward, clawing on all fours at a frenetic pace.

Just in front of her sits a glowing... presence.

And then I lose whatever thought I had and go after her and Dinu is there somewhere by me and I think everyone else too.

There it is. There it goes.

Please... do not continue to hover so far out of my reach...

 _Gyntis_

 _I'm just saying_ , I mutter, _I'm just saying that he doesn't deserve all the freaking credit he gets._

Tessa scowls, like usual. She's not very nice. _I think he does! And you know who's on my side and not on yours?_ Well it's obvious. Of course I know. _Mistress! Mistress is always on his side! Always forever! So... So that makes me right!_ Course. Because Mistress is always right. _Sh-Shut up, Gyntis, you're a... bully!_

 _I've been called worse._ And she hates how obscure I'm being so I let it stay at that. It's funny seeing her get all riled up. Besides, we're taking some pains to stay quiet, so it should be alright. Don't need the subject of our conversation to barge in on us.

We're all busy feeling lousy anyways.

Because that's it, huh. It's coming. Whether we want it to or not, it's coming.

Not that _Mistress_ cares. And that makes _Mistress_ right, now damn doesn't it. Whatever. She's annoying. Too good a presence, too biased, too soft. She's alright mostly but she's really soft, like, seriously. She'll get herself hurt if she hasn't already.

Oh wait. That's _right_. She has. Hah. Not that she does anything about it, either.

 _Gyntis, I said stop it! You're a freaking bully, so shut up!_

While she's busy screaming at me, one-dimensional pachy, Pippy perks up and mutters something recycled out of her sentences, because with the support of the big stupid seismo that'll totally get me to listen to them, _right_. Because Pippy's _nice_ , and he _cares_ about people, and he's a _good_ person with a _good_ conscience. Ulh. It's annoying to listen to all the time. I get that Pippy's going through some junk but that doesn't mean everyone has to literally bow down to him.

 _Nobody bows down to him, Gyntis! You're just a big bully!_

I keep ignoring her. It's easier that way.

I do wonder, though. How Mistress does it. Why Mistress does it.

Sunny's been in and out of the conversation, because Tessa's not enough, and she murmurs, _Yeah... I wonder that too. If it were me, I'd forget about him by now. Camri's not all that great or anything._ She only says it aloud because we all know that the both of them have been pretty hard unconscious all the way back since that whole Illit nonsense.

 _Personally, I like Camri. He doesn't try to hide his flaws._

Sunny snorts, waving a fin. _That's because he doesn't think he has any._

 _Same thing._ It basically is.

 _Camri's mean!_ cries Tessa without any kind of reasoning. Not that she's wrong. She just comes off as whiny when she says it like that. That's just how it is with her. Thus she's usually wrong. Not this time, though... not this time.

With a snort, I carry on. _He's not that bad. He's just as flawed as anyone else. He just... has a different way of going about it. You know. Instead of_ complaining _about everything he makes it a positive effect of himself._ When I utter _complaining_ , I glance right at Tessa's stupid guilty face. She doesn't have a thing to say to that. _Besides, Mistress can have feelings about whoever the hell she wants to, or her heart wants to, or whatever, and you can't say a thing of it. So give up already. She doesn't listen to any of you as it is._ And it's true. She listens to her heart... her, _hem_ , faulty heart.

Because she's tired of this conversation, Sunny mutters, _Well you know what else has flaws, other than us?_ She rolls her eyes. _Ancients. How about we talk about_ ancients _again._

 _What?_ Tessa's baffled.

 _I don't particularly care._ Because I don't. Sunny has a slight obsession over them, like she does over everything that she can glean something out of. Like a... little scamp. Not that she calls herself that. She's a little too interested in everything, _I_ think. But whatever. Ancients again, whatever.

She gets all weird excited when she starts talking about them. Her eyes get shiny, and her face is bright and... it's a little morbid, _I_ think. _I'm just saying! There's something about them! You heard everyone else talking about it!_

 _Lower your voice before someone hears you, geez._

Sunny pouts back at me. _You're a real grump, Gyntis._ But that's true, so I don't say anything about it. See, they think that if they rub it in my face I'll become a _better person_. Doesn't work that way. _Still... there's so many ancients around... nnnnnn, I can't be the only one wondering what it means. Do they have a sort of beacon?_

 _Zoazoa. Sunny, we already talked about this._ It's obvious. Crazy possession girl and her scaled friend or... whatever. That hot mess.

 _It can't be that simple, Gyntis! Maybe there's something that... amplifies what's going on! I mean, Rupert and his friends and everyone were attacked when Zoazoa wasn't around too! So... so it's like... we're totally glossing over something..! But... wh-what is it we're forgetting? Uhhhhhhg, I hate this feeling of... not knowing!_

Oh, geez. _Lower your voice, you child. At this point there's no use in resting if you're just gonna spend all your reserves on yelling at me._ She'll probably blame me for being an aggravating pest that makes her too mad to calm herself down, but again, I don't really care. It's... whatever. They're annoying. They're all kind of annoying.

I have a use, though. With these people I have a use. So I deal with it.

Besides, Rupert's not really thinking about it either. He doesn't know it by know but he'll figure it out soon enough: you can't just _run away_ from your _problems_.

Doesn't matter how long it takes. It'll come back eventually. Well he knows that with Luk I guess.

He'll probably look at it like _oh, I have more friends and I'm stronger now, so it's fine_ , which I can't really debunk. Doesn't mean it's not coming back, though. He's changed, Rupert.

Poor guy. I feel sort of bad for him sometimes. His childhood was pretty fucked up, I mean.

 **Anyone know what Gyntis is referencing xD**

 **You'll see soon if you don't know now! Hahaha... well, not super soon but... like, not the -next- chapter and maybe not even the -next next- chapter but... well you get the point xD you'll see, haha.**

 **I had fun with Gyntis. He's kinda cool, but only in a grumpy sullen way.**


	32. Da: Cages and Control

**So... we've been hearing things about Dina. And... it's like we've seen her... but we haven't? And I mean, heck, the last we saw of Dina she was like not doing well and then was sort of doing well? getting there? I guess?**

 **What the heck is going on with her am I right? XD Well that's what you're about to find out! What the heck is going on with her! Heheh...**

 **and of course if that is even her KOFF**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 32: Cages and Control

 _Dina_

One sweep of my hand, the air around it stirring softly, little fists of cold weather pushing against my scales and diving beneath the cracks and staying there, an imprint. My breaths channel and beat to the drum of my heart, a wave of heat flushing me with each thrumming boom. My hair still lies in busied tangles about me. And I sometimes think of it, teasing my fingers through such an unruly orange mane, but eventually I forget what I was thinking about again and try to focus on the task staring in front of me.

The task lacking eyes, eyes piercing my skull. The task lacking voice, voice a whisper of fear. The task lacking teeth, teeth rippling for a taste... of me.

The task that is not real at all and yet lashes back out at me like it is real, very real, and it refuses to be neglected.

One, two, three... I wipe my cheek and smudge the sheen of sweat coursing down gritty silver scales. My mind is hollow and it is hard to remember how close I am to darkness until I trip and twist my leg and land weakly on the ashen ground.

Inhale... exhale... My shivering head, burning to the touch, is enveloped by small white fingers, their tips cold. H-Heh... I must be doing that—that thing my beloved told me not to do again... too much... too much exertion, because then I am unconscious and I cannot do anything when I am unconscious... but it feels so—so close... sometimes. Like the rip of a curtain away. Black fabric left sprawling and... in comes the light. O-Or dark... if it is night. A-And a dark night. Nnnnnf...

Not to do that, either, he warns me. Not to think too hard. Because then my head hurts and it is for naught... and it is for naught because I never figure much out of it anyways... Wh-When Trikko was here, I began to follow some small string of thought, and I feel as if I went somewhere then. Ah, if only he was here now. Trikko... Trikko is waiting for me. In the other world. The world I left behind, or maybe I was left behind by. Zoa...Zoa.

Oh, no. Torn... a-and Trikko, and everyone else have probably met her... I wonder if she is nice to them or not... I-If she is not nice to them, Torn might get mad... A-Actually, he will probably get mad even if she is nice to them... And I wonder how long I have been in here and then I wonder if—if Torn has already gotten mad at her. At someone. At a lot of people. Torn gets mad very easily.

And thinking about it... does not fix the fact that I am not there. Dina... deep breaths, in, out, in, out... pick yourself back up again... i-it is just as you reasoned out, just what you and your beloved agreed upon.

Again I run my fingers through long waves of knotted hair, slowly fraying with each nervous tic. I remind myself, oh, I need to focus, and if I focus, then it is like he said and like I thought maybe would work and if I do not focus then I will never know. Though of course there is always the unspoken in-between, that no matter how far my limits go and how far I lead them there will be no opening, there will be no escape.

My beloved and I decided not to think about that one. That—That is no good. Heh... I wish Torn was here sometimes. If Torn was here, he would yell at me for even pretending I could fail.

He is hopeful like that. Of course... Trikko would advise otherwise—he would probably say, no, let us not think about it at all, just ex—experiment, and... and see what comes out of it. The... _facts_. Trikko loves the facts. Yes... Yes, he does. And I smile, wistful, musing, happy, thinking about my stout curmudgeon of a tricera. The lowly chortles he gave out. The way he could twist anything Torn said—or I said—or maybe anyone, for that matter—into a perfect little bow of his making.

They make me smile. My heart is warm, thinking of them. And that is not too much, I do not think—and if it is then it is of no matter. Is Nyra keeping them in check or do they disobey her? Eheh... naughty vivosaurs... but I think they are nice too. And... Reyna always told me not to call her nice, not to call _everyone_ nice, because everyone is _not_ nice. _She_ is not nice. And maybe she was right, maybe she is. I do not know.

What is Reyna doing? Is she still moody..? Reyna...

Ah—I snap to attention again at the gentle tap on my shoulder. "Y-Yes!" I start. My cheeks redden.

"Dina..." There is a tease in his voice, warm, lingering by my ear. "It pleases me to see you happy, but do remember what we are doing." He halts, then, and his voice grows somewhat nervous. "Of—Of course, if you need to rest after—"

"N-No, no! I-I am alright! M-My beloved, please do not worry..." My demure smile mirrors in his eyes, glowing gold, and it faintly sketches over his lips. If but faintly. "I just... was distracted again. O-Oops." That is no good. It... It is as he tells me.

"Well. I prefer distracted to disheartened."

"But... But I need to focus if I... if I..." if I want to see you again...

And he catches the slight slip in my gaze as my eyes hover over him again, and his mood shifts as well. A somber lilt, a soft sigh. "I know, Dina. I know..." His eyes trail me, slowly pulling back to the dark horizon. "But... I still worry, too. You... You hurt very easily..."

O-Oh... beloved... While he is unaware, I step closer to him and nudge his side, gently embracing him. The slight jolt is... is funny, and I giggle, and he has to cover his face somewhat with a hand to put a guise over his surprise. Silly... "You also hurt very easily! Ohhh... d-do not be too hard on yourself either..." And I know he is not truly the real boy I once knew, but... but I want to believe that some small spark of him hides fizzling beneath layers of my imagination. Some tiny, tiny sliver of the boy who made so much of a difference to me back when I was... conscious, alive, _real_ , like them... some piece of him remains with me, in my heart. Like Torn, and Nyra, and everyone...

"N-Now you stay here." I pull back, resting a hand on his shoulder and twisting a smile on my lip. "I—I can... I can do this..!" And I furl my fists and dash forward again, throwing my every might into the very blackness surrounding me. And my thoughts return to the swirling vortex of glimmer I controlled, the one that revealed to me the memories I had lost so long ago, and if I... if I can _just_... push hard enough, try hard enough, if I just keep trying then... then... then maybe I ca—

 _Pffhb_.

O-Ooooh... my head spins...

Did I just... fall... again? Ohhhh... that is no good... falling does not help me very much... nnnn... Dizzy, I dig my palms through the ash and manage to reach enough of a grip to shift to my knees, to dig in there, to push, to climb myself back up again. Stray curls drip into my face; I brush them back again and with my spin I trip and I—

and I fall again. A sharp sting stitches up my spine and I squeak weakly. Careful... careful... my head throbs and I try to ignore it and I blow my hair as far from my sight as I can get it, wispy dark strands as they are in the great darkness. The only light that condones me is my beloved and his slight glow and his hands reaching out toward me.

His voice is rushed. "Dina—I—I _told_ you to be _careful_... Ahh, _Dina_..." Eyes furiously searching for any pain other than the vertigo that tips my forehead into his palms. He lets my head rest before situating himself in front of me, searching for my hands, gently squeezing them, helping me back up again.

When I squeeze back, though weakly... and I turn to face him... his gaze has gone unnaturally quiet. Vacant. Em—Empty. Pale skin lacking what color once subtly warmed his features. Eyes wide and staring, a weak shade of yellow. Lips parted, in the middle of a silent debate between himself. His fingers have gone cold beneath my hands. My—My burning hands.

What did I... What did...

"Mier?"

A skeleton of a smile stretches along my lips as I turn my quietly paling face to that of the boy I so love and care for.

 _Who is Mier?_ _Who—Who is—who—whhhhh..._

D-Did I forget someone else? No—No... please do not tell me there is yet more I have forgotten... p-please, no... Please... I cannot... I... I cannot... ahhh... I glance, frenzied, back up at him, then back at our entwined hands and then back at his fanciful gaze, wistful and weak and yet so... so different from the boy I thought I remembered.

At first, I cannot place it, this caking sensation in my heart that there is something very different, very off with him, outside of what already palpably is... something behind this veil.

In a methodical fashion, my beloved breaks his fingers from their hold around mine and turns directly away from me, toward some distant point off in the empty sky, empty like his... like his face. "No, I... _Mier_ , please listen to me." Before he even finishes the question is on my tongue but I cannot even squeeze hardly a syllable into this silence before he goes on again. "I know. Zoazoa is... is dangerous. But if we keep her here—in the cabin—if we... if we keep her here..."

Zoa—he is... Zoazoa? Why is he mentioning her? Dangerous? She did not sound very dangerous when she spoke to me... but maybe that is because she still lived inside, like where I am now... it is awfully dark and quiet in here... it would probably make even her father lose his edge... I-It certainly did something to Torn...

"If we keep her here, then... Dina will be safe." _Oh_. Oh, that is...

"I am—"

And seamlessly he cuts me off again: "I-I know... your cabin has... many people in here now... but... but it is as Dinu said. Please... trust us. I... I just ask you listen to me."

As he seems so—so unaware of my presence, I step carefully and turn so that I face him again, glassy expression and all. The clothes upon him, the red coat and striped pants... come off as hazy, suggesting other layers smothering on top of them or perhaps an alteration entirely. His eyes are open and—and his expression is not lacking warmth at all, it...

It is so honest. My... beloved had changed. My heart pounds, my breath short and—my darling has... changed. Is this... excitement? Or nerves or... oh, trembling fear? I want to embrace him and hold him so tightly to me, to disappear in his warmth and his soft scent and stay there with him yet when I try to touch him... my fingers pass through his chest.

I feel without hearing the gasp, a chasm splitting my face wide open. I glance frantically up at his distant face and the fuzzy edges and spill through him, landing hard on the ashes at his feet... and it is just like a memory—but... but...

this is not a memory. Not... a _past_ memory.

Is this... Is this the present? The present... outside of where I am? My eyes leap to his jawline as he speaks softly, begging to whomever this _Mier_ is—a jagged white scar tugging at each word. His eyes, so much gentler, are almost wild, his expression having completely disregarded any sense of the lofty distance he so barricaded himself in... when he was scared. And he was—he was very scared of the world and quick to avoid every person, every sense of feeling he could and...

He is so different now. Again I am overcome by this drowning sensation to grip him tightly to me... my beloved... but still he remains, so out of my hands, out of... my dimension.

I raise said perpetrator, pale, scrawny white fingers... and I glance back at his hands, the hands I took before he changed, my burning hands.

Did... _I.._?

No—it is not—it _could_ not... could not... could not be... so. And then I start, sitting up, springing back from my beloved as he murmurs on using words I cannot identify to this ashen world where this _Mier_ is not real and neither is he or anyone else but me. But could it? But... _could_ it be so? Did I... did _I..._ with my _hands_ , did _I_...

That was when he altered, shifting faintly, and locked out of this world of mine. As if... he is not of my own creation, more or less, but of his own self and his own feelings and thoughts and mind and he acts upon the world, the other world, the real world, the one I have ceased to exist in. And when I took his hands I lost him. It was then that it happened. And it is as I said: I am all that remains living here. All that I know of.

A giddiness, this hot trickling giddiness, seeps down into my skin, infectious, lively... foreign. This smile I cannot sway breaks out upon my face, my pale, sooty limbs twitching with energy that I have not felt in so long. Tearing through the ground I leap to my feet and turn and run straight into my beloved, who bounces back from me and glances, golden eyes piercing.

Seeing me. Seeing me again. Glowing, translucent with the color of the holograms I have crafted all around me.

In some part of my frothy motions, a spinning euphoria that I cannot begin to contain, that cannot begin to contain me, hands gently clasp over my shoulders and press into place, easing me back into the reality still very existent around me. "Di-Dina, are you alright?" Big, fretful eyes, lip wavering.

His worry knocks me out of my splendor. Frantic, I shake my head and—and then I think about what he said and I shake my head again, with more force, curls tossing, and after a pause I nod. "Yes, I... s-sorry, I... I am." Losing the slippery sense of ecstasy, squeezed out of my head, I feel my shaking body and wince. My forehead... is burning, and it aches when I swallow. O-Oof. "Did you... Did you see that, m-my beloved? It was not only me, no..?" Then, pushing the force between my tongue and my teeth: "D-Did you _see_ that?"

"Dina..." Exasperation. His expression an exhausted wreck. I glance away fleetingly. My lip trembles. "What are you talking about? I... I cannot recall seeing anything."

But that... That cannot be so. "N-No..." I mumble. My lips purse into a small pout. "No, you... you did not? Then—wait. But... But you did not see... _anything_? What do you mean?" Maybe... Maybe that means...

"I mean that there is—a blank space in my head. You were... on the ground. You were... tired. You hurt yourself, trying... trying too hard again, and I was... I was worried and I came after you and... and then..." He squints, searching into a past that has seemingly dissolved before his eyes. "What happened?" His fear and tire have worn slowly to a wondering, a worry, a—dare I voice it—a hope, flickering faintly.

"You said... s-strange things, my beloved! Very... strange things!" How do I tell him? Oh, of course— "You spoke of... this person! I think... their name was Me-Mere... Mier? Miiyerr..." I glance toward my beloved again, his eyes a question and mine a hopeless second. "Beloved... who is Mier?"

He does not have to say anything. His answer hangs in the air. "I don't know... Dina, I... my apologies. I cannot say who... who this _Mier_ is." And he tastes it too, his face shifting as he tries to pick up the strange accent in the name, the little syllable.

But... of course he does not know. If he did not see it then he would not know. This beloved, this boy I refer to as my beloved, he is not from the real world but a pocket in my memory that has recreated him as best as I could with what I had provided to me. So if... if _that_ was the real boy I love, and he knows a Mier that neither of us are acquainted with, then... then...

Trikko would say... not to hope so highly. He would say in that soft, low, regretful tone that there is too much of a... of a _variable_ to know for sure. And he does not want to raise my hopes with hot air alone. Because that could be a lie, that could be _lying_ and Trikko does not want to lie. He speaks truth with a silver tongue.

Well. I-I am not Trikko.

"Maybe Mier is... Maybe Mier is someone new. Someone you met, the... the _real_ you. A real Mier in a real world... right now!"

I whisper it frantically, forcing it out of my mouth in great heaping breaths, maybe, maybe, _maybe_.

And maybe he is more based off of me than I would like to admit or maybe he would have said it even if he was the real boy I love, but even so, there a soft pink smile perches upon his lips. "I see. That would mean that you are doing well, Dina. Very... well." And a faraway look, like a sunset off to the horizon, fills his gaze and leaves him there... be-because maybe.

Before he has a chance to tell me anything else I release his hands and run off again, maybe in the direction I have been going, but I am not very sure at this point. All I can think of is running and—and running and running and finding that inner feeling and letting it out, letting it free, and thinking of the things that could happen if this occurs again, all of the things that could change. My hands weave through the smoky breeze wide open and splayed out around me, orange curls flickering back behind me, teasing around my neck. The air is cool on my scales. It sticks readily. My heart pounds and I mistake it for my head, for the bleary pounding that has dissolved since I last remembered it.

I run and I run and I run so hard that I run out of consciousness and before I know it my head is buried in the ashes when I open my eyes again, breaths still hard down my throat, just as rough and wet as they were what felt like moments ago but may not be. For all I know, seconds have passed. Or maybe months. H-Heh, maybe not though.

Mier is not that old, r-right?

Weakly, I pull, wresting out from my latest fall. Soot streaks along my scales. Black tracks intermingle with the long lines of silver and white scales. Not... very pretty. Dirty. Very dirty. I sneeze once, twice, on my way out. I... I fell hard this time. Only my body reveals this difference, elbows tingling, knees aching, sore spots glistening from where they were hit when I landed. The faint light allows a hint at where my beloved is—standing somewhere behind me—so I am not surprised when I stand and turn and there he is, pale-faced again.

"I... I want to ask you to stop doing that," he mumbles, biting nervously at his lip, "but I fear you will anyways. Dina, you... worry me... heh, I-I know that seeing you so charged is a good result in the haze you once felt toward yourself but... but recklessness is no good either..."

I think he mostly tells this to himself, for comfort, for ease, as he releases a shaking breath and then starts at the sight of me. A blush swoons his face and he needs to look away, then. My beloved. Somehow, it... it reminds me of the barrier the real boy overcame, the one I faintly saw and stepped through instead of held, and then I pull to him and I need to... I need to take him in close to me, to press my head against his shoulder.

To stay like that, for a little while.

In some conscious effort I try to keep my hands away from him, because the real beloved... I cannot hug. His hands are fast to embrace, fast to wrap around and clasp me close to him, his head nuzzling mine, his breath soft on my face.

My fingers tense. It is a fight to remind myself not to be too close, not to touch him so much, especially with my hands. He tenses around me like he feels it rippling inside of him—when I trip and lash out and whipping brightness scours my face.

I would have fallen, did he not hold me. Fallen, did he not scoop my useless legs into one arm, my torso supported by the other. He bends into me, his head hovering over mine, watching over my fluttering breath, my wide eyes.

Over his shoulder I peek a second time. I-I decide I am not sure how to feel about what I see, and maybe that is—that is for the best. Because what I see inside of a scribbled frame is dark, dark like the black fog clinging to our every side. Dark but... musty. A wafting wave of cold, dark dirt brushes over me, the smell of the underground overwhelming.

Hiding my head into his chest, I burst into little coughs.

He nudges me, gently. Glimpsing back into the somewhat-lighter cave, to the glowing... portal that I so shredded into this world. To the—the... people... staring down into it, incredulous. Big faces. Wide eyes. One of them gawks so strongly and then leans over and plucks one of the rocks out from the cover and screeches, tossing it immediately to the side somewhere.

 _SMMOCK_.

It lands loudly. I cringe.

Gently, gently, his grip is upon me. And there is a fight—I see a fight in his gaze as he holds me, to lead me to the opening or to stay, to take me far, far away from the glowing way that will surely take me out. And I see it, repeated, on his lips, that scary little word. Oh, my darling...

 _Out_.

My heart squeezes into a mush in my chest. And then it jumps and I lurch and I watch as the boy in the other side of the portal mumbles something, very dubious, very nervous. And I watch as—as his eyes pop out of his head—literally—s-so _so_ white—so _wide—_ whatever voice in his mouth souring by the second—as I step out of the arms of my beloved and up and up and into _his_ world.

When our eyes lock, my heart pounds again. Again—harder. I can hardly breathe. I swallow, meekly, my eyes surely as wide.

A pocket of air—of sky somewhere above—blows on my back.

I think... I should recognize the boy, but I do not. And I wish I did... for he has scales. Scales... l-like me. And—And then I glance to the side slightly and there is _another_ one, _another_ boy with scales like me. But his scales are not orange and black and silver, they are of blue varieties... and gold. Old rose.

Finally my eyes chance upon the girl. Her hair a tangled mess, her dark face a snarl.

And I decide I will follow the pocket of air out. R-Right now.

They all stare at me so... perpetually, unable to tear their gaze away from my presence, and it jolts me each time I glance back at them. Wide, wide eyes, mouths dropped open, uncomfortable questions swimming among their faces. It is almost a relief, quickly turning and darting up the long tunnel path of mushy brown grit.

When I realize that no, I do not feel it under my feet so I—so I do not know if it is mushy brown grit. That is what it looks like but... but my feet never detect it. Wary, my eyes jump to my side in wonder and... and maybe the strange people had a reason to be afraid when I appeared. My body, whitewashed, contains hardly any color from what it once has. I am not truly here.

We-Well... I guess I should have seen that coming. When... When Zongazonga... took my beloved... I remember faintly that he was an uncontainable substance too, until he could retrieve his body. H-How strange... this is so... so different than what I have been used to for some time now... H-Hah, and I still do not feel the wind on my skin, merely blowing through me, it must be, and here I am seeing without feeling the earth I think I stand on.

I hear their footsteps, swift, pounding, and I glance back and it is the boy, the not as tall boy, the one with the orange scales, orange face, silvery chest... and again, there is this hot, prodding sensation piercing my heart with each beat but it is not very helpful... I twist my lip staring at him but I think he does not notice any of this occurring.

And then from further behind the girl and the other boy round and it hits me twofold, slamming me off my feet. Before I know it I glance up and the world shutters violently around me. A squeak pries out of my mouth—a _silent_ squeak—I have no voice, either—as black spots stab into my face and my limbs and my heart beats rampantly, screaming at me to go faster but I am—but I am not very fast... but I... head swimming, I remember him, I remember him asking me not to give up, not do _die_ , not to be okay with letting myself die and I... and I keep pushing and... pushing and... pushing and I think I must be on my hands and knees at this point.

Erupting from the hole in the ground would be more pleasant if the grass did not disappear so often as I glimpsed another direction. The pangs in my head return gladly and wallop my skull aside so that I crash into some... some ferns, I think, it is so hard to tell and before I know it the ferns are gone and the grass is gone and the—and the—the bright, blue sky has deserted me.

The face of my beloved flashes over me. Dark, dark surroundings... my head, throbbing, throbbing, so hard I mistake it for a bomb once, no, twice... ahhh... fingers curled up and shaking into themselves but I... but I remember the faces so well. Those people. Those people that I think I know, though I cannot begin to place where... oh, oh, I should start with the beginning... of course...

His lips move in front of me, though I cannot hear him. I strain to for some short time and give up rather unceremoniously. S-Some things I think are not going to work. That is okay. I just... I just need to focus and maybe I can remember who—

Stabbing, stabbing heaves strike me down again, my breaths weak and small and so so raspy and it is hard to think, hard to think outside of this swimming vortex of blind pain... it is hard to... hard to see, hard to... breathe... and his face is gone before I can even glance back at him again, my beloved, replaced by the ferns I casually stroll by.

H-Huh. Maybe... it is for the best if I do not question why I am... Y-Yes, I think I will not.

Carefully, I pull back and watch for the other people, the strange people I struggle to remember outside of the load of things already in my head, and one of them—the orange one—pulls the girl down to his side and whispers, face flushed, "I think it's a she."

I start. D-Does he mean _me_? Flustered, I throw a stare down at my figure, my distorted and swirling silvery figure and... a-and no wonder he could not tell in the first place, I-I can hardly tell who I am and I have been this person for however many years now.

An outrageous snort rips from the girl and in response she shoots some low, hot words back at him, words that slip from my understanding but for a slightly louder, "Maybe it's Rosie." I strain to catch anything more but... but I do not.

Who is Rosie? Oh no... i-is she like Mier? Nnnnn... this is hard...

Quickly I continue to walk, faster, faster, leading the scary and strange people from behind me. A worn trail aligns with my footsteps... a worn trail I also faintly recognize, and I look out and there is the edge of the world, on top of that cliff... the cliff I so graphically remember from what I saw before. My stomach pinches and I realize, _oh_ , we are _here_. Wh-Why did they want to come here? Here is not a nice place; here is a very... very scary place. But how do I warn them to get away..? I cannot speak. O-Oh...

Maybe... Maybe if I show them once, then they will not come back... th-then they will be safe... These people—they do not... look like bad people. No...Not at all.

Before I have a chance to lead them any further my knees buckle and my head implodes and there it is, there it is again, a swarm of blackness eating away at the very pit of my soul. Hot, shaky breaths try to fuel me but I think I start forgetting to breathe a few times, I feel my heart aching... my fingers so, so cold and... and I need to—I need to see those people again, I need to warn them before... before something really bad happens...

I think of it, _what might happen_ , and I split off into a sharp gasp and I remember what they did to me and I wonder, I _wonder_ if they would do it to _them_ or if they have already done it to _other people who are not me_ , have already _spread_ their attacks... It is stupid, but it... but it made me feel slightly better, back when—when I—when I was in their basement—it made me feel s-somewhat better to think at least if I am the one here then nobody else is... it is stupid but... but it made me feel so much better... A-And now—and _now_.

Oh... I need to go. I need to see them again. I hear his voice now, rough, rasping, his gold gaze begging and I think he does not want me to try again but I do, but I think I really do want to. My mind flashes back to that girl with the long hair, the waterfall of red hair, the icy blue eyes, the face that one of _them_ would so easily _pluck_ into their _hands_ and _shred_ into if I am not—if I am not...

They need to go. They need to go right now. It is _not_ safe there.

And like a magic word, I feel myself situated in the place with the blue sky again, toward the bottom of the cliff now. The two boys and the girl stand reading over the sign that I know by heart by now, every little nook and corner and torn piece of edge, spelling out the same **Mini-Vivaldi Isles** as it always did, a-and I cannot even read... h-heh... Swallowing, I raise my head and try to pull out my hand, to—to beckon back to them, to bring them toward me.

Words hit me in a gushing pour.

"Guys? W _e're on... Mi_ ni- _Vival_ di Isles? Wh _at the_ he _ck_ is t _hat suppose_ d _to_ mea _n? If_ you're gon _na_ be that we _ird_ ab _o_ ut i _t, j_ ust na _me y_ ourselves _Vivosa—_ "

"—iiin _ooo, th_ ere _'s alre_ ady a Vi _vos_ sssss—"

"Then le _t's j_ ust call it Vi _vosaur_ Isl _and the Seco_ nd! There you _frea—ppP_ ppr _oble_ m fre _akin_ g s _ol_ ved!"

A lull, throbbing, waiting. Then the tallest one, the blue one, notes my presence, pointing.

"Dino, Jkonna. She has... returned."

All of a sudden it hits me. _Oh_. O-O-Of _course._ It is... It is...

And he does not even know it but it is... this is me. His... _sister_. Dino... Dino, I am—I am right here... I am right here... But I start, nervous. Why have you come, Dino? Why did you come _here_? That is not a good idea, that is... that is very bad... Torn would agree, Torn would so very much agree, he would so very much think this a terrible idea...

Please... Please... I point hopelessly, turning my beckon into a sendoff. _Get away, get away from—_

They do not understand what this means and begin to follow. Slowly, first, and then faster. My heart jams into my chest as I turn around and run, terrified. What do— _How do I get them away from here?_ This is... This is bad... Ohhhh, this is so, so, so bad...

I glance back and forth from the ground to that first house, to that very first house, and I do not want to admit it but that might be the best way to get them out of here. They look... They look very fast, and very strong-willed, if they are all the way here. I-I do not know where Vivosaur Island is, so it must be... very far away. R-Right? It must be. That is... ahh, I do not know why they are here but they need to... need to...

Ohhh... I wish my greatest fear did not have to... did not have to become my _last resort_...

Trembling, trembling, I pause in front of the old house I know so well. I swallow, my breath sticking to the back of my throat. I envelop myself in my arms and bend into the pressure, wheezing softly, silently in this way they cannot hear. I try to kick up dust—failing—in my trepidation, and in a sudden pang I wish I could write something on the ground for them, I-I wish I knew how to write... though maybe it would not make a difference, since I cannot even touch this dust on the earth.

I must lose consciousness again at some point, head spiraling, because the next time I look up there is a—is a _man_ just behind me, a very certain man. He is pointing to his left—their right—all three of them stare so intently, so fearfully, at him, and in a great fervor I point to my left too, because they need to... need to _go_... and at least if they end up in the Caliosteo Islands... maybe they will run into Todd, or Joe... or my beloved.

But I... miss what happens next. My body—losing power—I doubt I can hold into this state for much longer—is going transparent, and in front of the bulk of this bodybuilder, _the father of Todd, Mr. Hurican_ , I all but fade away completely. Words are thrown and I watch as Mrs. Hurican slams, shivering, into the door, blood o-oozing out of her, and I think her mouth frames that word frantically, again and again and again and _Todd, Todd, Todd..._

Does she miss her son? I... do not know. M-Maybe.

He never... really liked them, though. He never truly reciprocated them or what they do or what they have done for him. He was happy to leave with me. He was happy when we left. Never to return... so it was done.

It is so fast and so sudden that I almost miss it. But it is... hard to miss when a fist swoops just above your hand and smushes into the face of your brother who you just saw for the very first time in—in years.

Then I think... I think... I think I made a mistake. I lose my footing; immediately I tumble into the earth, bleeding into the shadows. My weak, faint figure must be impossible for anyone to see by now and I glance back up at my brother, at the—at the mess on his face, the bloody smudge, the ugly gleam of swelling, the split lip, the wild scarlet stare; then someone pushes him and they run.

And they run to my left. To their right.

I collapse into heavy breaths, and I feel like I should be crying, but I cannot quite bring myself to. So I stay like that, hesitant, nervous, so very relieved, and when I lift my aching head again it is not Dino and his marred face at all that I see but one of serene gentleness... and my heart freezes.

"Nnnnn... M-My beloved! I..." My fingers close around myself. "I... I did something b-bad!" I... I hurt him, d-did I not? I brought him there and I hurt him, I let him get hurt... my stomach crawls... all that blood, so much blood, his eye—h-his eye was so... so red...

Without hesitation, he sits in front of me and takes me into him. "D-Dina, what happened? You... You are shaking. Very... much, actually. Dina..." Glancing into my eyes, my pale cheeks, scrutinizing every last detail. "Oh no..."

He does not even need me to say it. He can tell something very bad happened. "Dino... I-I-I saw Dino... and he and—and his friends were... were _here—_ no... I-I mean, they were... there were nearby, i-in Mini-Vivaldi Isles—where I, where I came from... and they were _there_ , and that is _bad_... and Dino... Dino got hurt..."

Blind red flashing before my eyes.

"Dina..." Gently holding me. He does not prod me, does not ask me to go on.

"Nnnnf... He must... He must be really hurt..."

My beloved releases a slow breath, shaking his head. "Maybe... it was a bad idea to do that. I-I am sorry, Dina, I was the one who suggested you—"

"N-No, do not... blame yourself." I gently nudge him. "I... wanted to go. I- _I_ wanted to go. And they... a-at least they are not there anymore. Mr. Hurican... hurt Dino. And... then they ran away. I-In the direction toward the Caliosteo Islands.

I feel him relax, slowly, around me. His head lowers until our foreheads bump and his gaze flutters, settling to meet mine. My beloved... is calming. Th-That is good. "It was me who led them... to the Huricans. But they were already on the island and... and it is scary there and... I could not think of a better way, a-at the time, to get them to leave... and they did... s-so." Glancing up, glancing back, I flush. "D-Dino is very tall..! Very... tall."

"Really?" A faint smile blooms along his lips. "That is... annoying. Not taller than me, is he?"

"No, I think he is..." I giggle softly. "N-No, he must be..."

My beloved narrows his eyes, part teasing, part... I think he is a little irritated about it. Heheh. "Ahh, I dislike that... There is a sense of strength that comes naturally to height and... w-well, unfortunately that is a trait I lack..." And by the way he cannot hold my gaze and the hot blush on his cheeks I... I would say that he is embarrassed to admit it.

"Heh... that is okay. I like that... you do not, um... t-tower over me." And then I laugh again, softly, and a grin twitches at his lip.

Oof... I... I do not want to admit it, but my heart is tingling. I feel... I feel wrong. I feel lacking, I feel shame, I... remember the tug deep inside of me, the constant lull reminding me that there is something in my life very palpably Missing. And I remember missing it, missing it greatly, and my little facade with this version of the boy I call my beloved—however much it may resemble the real one—is nothing in comparison.

A raw wound, jutting out from a place I cannot reach, but it ripples every time I move, sending such awful spasms through my entire body... Oh, this yearning, this terrible yearning, after tasting a hint of the world out there I seem unable to stop wanting of it... wanting to be there again...

And he notices my discomfort. "What ails you, Dina?"

"Nnn..." It is not... really anything I can fix or change. Zoazoa... is strong. Zoazoa is in control. And... I-I was fine with that. I was satisfied in waiting for my death for... so long. Waiting with the Huricans, after leaving them it was so... strange. So it felt natural to learn that, oh, there is an ancient inside of me, a deadly powerful one, and she is slowly eating me away... that... that sounds very scary but... but at the time it... it was okay. I-I did not... mind.

So I want to... hate this feeling. To bury it, to ignore it, this horrible need deep inside of me. This need to see him. This need to... to see more than him, to see Todd and Pauleen and whoever Mier is and... and my brother. Wh-Who is _nearby_ , now. Who must be. I want to see the snow again and feel it on my scales, to see Torn and all of my other sweet and faithful vivosaurs, to be chastised by Reyna and laugh with Aladee and listen to Trikko and watch Nyra fly and hear Torn say all of his favorite words, his ugly, vile, most _favorite_ words in all of existence.

I miss it so badly it hurts more than Zoazoa does. And that confuses me...

"Maybe," I stir, my voice gentle, "maybe I should do that again. But—But not... with Dino. With... With someone else. Someone else who I plan to see, who I really... want to see." N-Not that I did not want to see Dino... i-it was just so unexpected... "I-If I can do it once, then... then I can do it again." And I guess I cannot stay very long, but... but I still can stay, for a little while.

Wow... my beloved—when he was possessed, that is not what happened at all. He was freely-floating, not put in a cage like I have been. He could still speak with me, and be with me, when we... f-fought Zongazonga. Heh... this is so different. The same, but... but not at all. Huh...

He is nervous upon consideration of my returning. "You are drained already, Dina... and you appeared to be in pain when you phased in and out of this world. Would that really..?"

"No.. it... it would be fine! I... I can do it..!" I... I just... I do not want to feel that longing pierce me like so... M-Maybe I do not know how to escape, really, but if... but if I can see the boy I love... if I can truly see him, like how I saw Dino—if he sees me... if he really...

That would be... very nice...

A-At least, I think it would be... Then—Then I should try it. That glimpse of him was something so small, so... so almost... trivial. I-I really... want to see him. V-Very much so. It took... a lot of focus... and a lot of strength on my part, f-from whatever life force I have, but... but maybe I can do it. A-And maybe it would be easier, because... because he might be closer to where Zoazoa is—in extent, I guess that is where I am too.

O-Okay. Okay. I can... I can do this. I pull to my feet and stand, stretching out my arms, stepping carefully forward. I do not really think about where I am going so long as I am going somewhere. It helps to walk as I think... to feel myself moving. Going. Getting... Getting there. Like a goal in mind.

I release a heavy breath. My fingers are cold still but... but so long as I... nnn... I just... just like last time. Just... like last time. R-Remember that I have done this before so... so I can do it again. I am tired, maybe, but... not _that_ tired... it should not be too hard... Deep breaths, deep breaths...

My beloved approaches and sits beside me, watching as I pace around him. He is quiet, but he is present... and that makes me think of my goal, of what I... what I really, really want to do... s-so maybe, maybe if I just... just keep thinking about it, just keep thinking about _him—_ oh, how I wish I had a name—then this can... this can work. This... can work.

When I think about him, my mind melts into this warmth and leaves me aching to see him, to hear him—and forcing myself to think about him and everything he is to me is intoxicating. Hard to breathe, hard to pay attention, hard to notice when I have put enough into it, when I can... when I am strong enough to _shove_ and _force_ the... the opening. When my arm reaches out for it, as it pulls, the tiny rip appears, and I claw at it, yanking it open, hurry, hurry, my eyes consuming the snowy horizon that meets me. My beloved murmurs some form of assent as I break through.

First, there is but snow—snow that I blend so easily into. Cold, curling snow about my figure. When I glance up, there lies... a wooden home in front of me—cabin. A cabin. It looks... old. Very old. Not run-down, but like an elder, almost regal with all of the wisdom it retains, so much of the world it has seen. Hurriedly I start to the window, peeking into the warm light—and there are eyes. Golden eyes.

But the face is all wrong. Tannish, a hint of red, pink waves of hair in a rather choppy fashion, a surprised stare almost as strong as the dissent. A golden earring glows on his left, with a black stud; on his right there is a hoop.

Before I can think of anything to say about this strange person, another face raises to the window and before I—before I get a very good look a feeling slams into me and I melt into the snow, like the flakes all around me. I catch glimpses, very strong glimpses, much more colorful and real than the ones from Dino—maybe because I am not as far away—of a creature slamming to the roof of the cabin, tearing the maw into the wood... the home imploding.

 _bbbhbBBbbuuuuUUUURRRRRRHHHHHHHGHGHHhhhh_

People running, vivosaurs, scattered along the snow. I try to keep up, find myself unable to, and then suddenly remember the battle form and quickly morph into the vivosaur, faster, faster, easily overtaking them and slamming into a snow pile somewhere far up ahead. Adrenaline stings down my veins. When I recover myself, I look back at the small gathering of people and I lock—and I lock—

and I lock eyes with myself. Then: _no_ , _not_ myself, that is _not_ myself but... someone _else_ inside of _me_. Frantic breathing. My world blows out of focus as the dark eyes broil and screaming shatters what little sense I had retained inside of me.

"NO! NO, YOU CAN'T DO THAT, NO!"

Right at me. Her words, an arrow, a splintering arrow, right through me, and I feel myself dissolving before I even see him... and my heart throbs ugly at the thought of it. As the world around me pulls away and I feel, I _feel_ myself sucking into the nexus I have spent so much of my time in, I... I bury myself into the snow and for... for a second I-I swear I feel cold nip at me, and then I am very much awake. I want to question what happened—that faint warmth charging in my veins—but there is no time—no time—no time...

When I run, the swirling blackness is easily left behind. Not this time... not this time...

Between the angry throbbing in my skull and the screaming that echoes from a voice so similar and yet so different to my own, it is not long before I lose track of myself. I can feel, like a tracking device, a faint burning when I come close to Zoazoa, s-so I try to stay away, away from her, away from the girl in my body... She is scary. She is very scary. And—is that Dinu? What is... she doing here?

Zoazoa inside of... that mountain. The boy I saw earlier is outside, further away from the other group of people and I think they are following her. Or... maybe Dinu. I do not know, but... but I know where _she_ is and I can tell where they are going, so I... help them. When they lose their way I try to lead them a little closer.

What happens when they find her? What happens if she... sees me again?

Will she... acknowledge me? O-Or not?

I think she is mad at me. Because I did not stay. I did not stay obedient. I was not good to her.

Well... I am sorry, Zoazoa. I cannot stay good to you any longer. I cannot... be that perfect little listener and wait t-t-to _die_... any longer.

Sometimes a hint of regret sneaks into me, and sometimes it grows and sometimes I shake it off but then there is still that piece, that tiny hint of regret inside of me. When I reach the middle of the cavern, I rest by the entrance to one of the little chambers—to the one Zoazoa is in with Dinu—and I watch as a silvery-haired boy follows cautiously inside. I watch as he makes his way carefully to his cousin and to the girl who is not me. His eyes shift between a nervous air and this strange, strange hope, this lightness to his step.

He and the blonde speak softly to one another. And then before I can think about it I rush in and I stand there, breathing weakly, reaching out to him. To _him_. Because... Because there he is.

Still... looking for me. Still trying... to be there for me. E-Even though someone else is inside of me now, someone who is very much not me. Even though he must be tired and anxious and upset and it would be so... so easy to give up, so hard to move on.

Here... I am. Here I am.

His head raises and those soft, soft yellow eyes stiffen. Confusion, thinking, thinking, maybe, maybe—oh. Recognition bursts into his gaze and he loses any fear that earlier came off of him so... plainly. He stands quickly, striding toward me. The incredulous stare cuts through me like any knife.

"Dina..?"

 _Ahhh_! My—My heart—he— _he gets it—_ he— _he sees—_

"NO IT'S NOT!"

I stare in horror as the girl inside of my body who is not me wrests a stone from the ground and chucks it and _hits_ him. The stone falls to the earth. A grunt of pain escapes him but he hardly acknowledges it. My heart... aches. I want to run toward him but I glance back and Zoazoa is very clearly not done so I step away, back, back, beckoning wildly, and he comes and he swerves and a larger rock sails over _just_ where he was, slamming off into the shadows.

Then I turn and run, breathing in gasps and wheezes that only I am not deaf to.

He is quick to follow, and I hear his voice, trembling: "Dina, is that really—"

 _SSSHHHHHK—_

And he silences, fast to escape the chamber and fast to stand by me and fast to ask, again, softer, in a voice as silent as mine, his eyes pleading.

My hand streaks forward to take him in and he leans close to me and my thumb so nearly scrapes his cheek when in the corner of my eye I catch Zoazoa and a terrible, terrible sense of burning overcomes me and I—and I lose it, I lose sight, I lose... all sense of... of...

Until I come back, bobbing, gasping for breath. I stand further back, out of _her_ sight. My beloved is near that boy, the boy with the pink hair, and the latter has a face of stone. I flinch back and begin to turn when I catch, over in the distance, the flow of fabric—of a green dress that I remember so well...

Todd. And by my foster brother is a girl of long, pink hair, her dark face twisted into a smirk—Pauleen. And then by them is another boy, blue hair, goggles around his face... o-oh. Is... Is that Luk? I-I remember Luk faintly. What is... What is he doing here? He... He did say he was friends with my beloved, I think...

Are they all... wi-with him? W-Wow...

My side twitches; I feel Zoazoa moving closer, slowly, steadily. Todd squeaks in his high-pitched voice and Pauleen is as saucy as I remember her... and there is a soft burst of voices, a weak argument, and the boy with the pink hair is left denied. I hear mutters of thoughts, of _memories_ , of Zongazonga and my name is tossed two or maybe three times too, back when we were all there...

Zoazoa slowly sticks her head out from around the rocks she threw. Her dark, murderous eyes glimpse mine and she whispers hotly, "Get back in." I jolt, stepping back, slipping over the stones, unnoticed to all eyes but she and soft lips that trembled so easily now shred apart like saws. "I said... _get_ back _in_. S-Stop." Her voice snaps and then I realize just how hard she is trembling. "Stop it. Stop doing this. _I'm_ you now. Get over it." And I scoot back a little more, and I know I am trembling but that I will not, will not let her have me again, s-so long as I can manage this.

It will probably not be long. I already feel the vertigo crashing amongst me. And I wonder what is keeping me going... if this was so hard to accomplish. Maybe... Maybe someone is... someone recognizes—maybe someone _else—_

My eyes ripple along the cave floor. There is a faint voice. I think I catch a curse, a loud one, and then another to follow it.

 _Torn._ Not a question.

A reply is quick to come. _Holy shit, Trikko's right._

A-Aaah... that means... that means... Torn is the one who... _Torn_...

And then there is no question but the pounding of feet on rock and I squeal as I force myself back, back away from those murderous eyes and my beloved stirs and he sees me again and darts after and then, like a waterfall, wave after wave, they all come tumbling after.

I have no idea how long I can keep this up but it does not take long to scale the thick path leading upward and after that I charge as far away as I can get as fast as possible.

 **Chase scene! Haha, this is exciting xD little bit, eheheh...**

 **So yeah, Rupert did see Dina! And Dino did too! Heheh... the story's all coming together...**

 **Oh and the vivosaurs are back in xD**

 **(if you're wondering how the Torn seeing Dina thing works... well, first of all there's the bond and the fact that all the vivosaurs were actually able to help Dina and enter that area for awhile in the first place... Second, the only other person who's been possessed in a way even remotely similar to Dina's (I like how it's all a little different... xD) is Rupert and when that happened to him (because Zongazonga) and his vivosaurs were actually in a similar state as him, so anyways I think that verifies Torn's thing xD)**

 **again! all coming together! i'm pumped, man!**

 ***Random notice for people reading my story as I post: I'm going to be updating really fast over the next week, because I don't have school... so uh, look out xD**


	33. Rt: Raise

**It always astounds but kind of unnerves me when I write more than one chapter a week. I'm just used to it, right? And it feels weird that so many of them are... practically flying by now xD But that's how it is when I'm on break: since I have the time to write, I might as well. At least, that's how I look at it. I look at a lot of things like that, haha. I'm a pretty simple-minded person when I want to be...**

 **ah well. It's also exciting because we're almost at this final part where all the stories collide and I'm... like, super pumped xD Pumped for my own story, pfff...**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 33: Raise

 _Rupert_

Surprisingly, I surpass frantic Zoazoa on the advancement of my Dina's escapade, whose head swivels toward me and forward again, once, twice, enough so that she bumps into some amount of rock without even batting an eye, the poor girl. She hardly acknowledges the pain, farther, faster, and with a final glimpse upon me she goes so far that I lose sight of her, the silver figure dissolving into seemingly the very air around her.

My heart throbs mercilessly. I continue without a thought of it, my hands clenched, my mouth agape, pumping air in and out of my bloodstream with a frightful intensity. And I continue on like this for some time. Spans of brown blur by. Turns, right, right, forward, left. There are no opportunities for more paths, as far as I have seen.

It is not until I drain myself that I collapse, gasping, on the sodden earth. Not until then that I note the trickling sensation through a gap in my foot and glance back at the leg I carelessly left without a cover, without even thinking of a shoe—the heel and all beneath it now severed in multiple places, the skin... hanging off in small chipped openings.

My raw foot aches, dully, harder, harder as I realize its existence. My other foot, my left foot, the one swaddled in the thick bandages Mier inscribed to it when it was broken, has yet to be harmed. Well, any more than the wounds I may have reopened due to all of this running.

Here I note that maybe this is an unwise decision, sprinting with all of the essence of my life after some silvery shadow of a girl. Yes... perhaps not. Well.

I listen to my breathing: softer, warmer, stronger. Denoting this as satisfactory enough, I rest a hand against the tunnel wall and stand again with a grunt. Oh. That is... That is new. I turn, thumbing through the silt, the rather smooth silt in a rather smooth tunnel leading from a... jagged cave, a very natural cave.

Hmm. That would explain the single pathway as of this point. What a... simple route. It had been rough further back but as I turn to check what I ran past, at some point the natural cavern must have been scoured into by whomever it is that dug out this tunnel and now remains as smooth as it is here. Ah... at the very least, my foot should not be as hampered as it was earlier. No wonder I lasted that much longer.

My conjecture would have, of course, gone to my vivosaurs were they not so sullenly still. Torn, even, I sense as I search through one pocket for him—his medal has rapidly gone cold. Not without a slight pulse, enough warmth to prove he is more than a smooth stone, but... goodness, he is not anywhere near conscious at this point. The others appear dormant, but not so still as he. Trikko, who I am sure would have had a point or so to bring up about these smooth walls, is silent, and I would take that as proof enough.

The others as well: my own vivosaurs prove to make a near replica of Dina's. Rubbing over Aladee I felt a slight jolt of fear, and this is mirrored in the majority of mine; I did not take it as any sign of a sort, he being Aladee, until now... The air grows staler the longer Dina has left but that cannot be enough to seemingly shut off such powerful creatures. Their powers do not _have_ a faucet; there is no _off_...

Even so, I should let them rest. They have worked hard... and besides, there is not much they could do here... I can run myself, once my strength returns. And the corridor is so small... But still, oh... there is a rancid feeling going rotten here.

Something is certainly the matter in this tunnel. As I begin to walk again, straining my gaze into the darkening cave, carefully slipping my feet along the rocks before I step forward, I try to search for an opening, for a sign, anything really that might have led to this stubborn silence.

Stuffy, and... thick. But the further I go from the entrance of the cave, oh, how much darker I perceive—without any light from any vivosaur, nor ancient, nor the faint silver-white trail Dina left behind, to lead faithfully the way. So I halt, and I wait, without much another option to comply.

She was... so bright. I never really recognized it until now, what with the energy Zoazoa must have given off. I... hardly thought of the darkness of a cave. How... stupid. I completely missed how dark the world was without any of the light I had grown so used to being there. H-Heh... Now I think about it and now I realize just how lonely I feel, just how terribly I miss the light I had when I finally found it, how terrible it was to lose it.

Oh, look at me, following after her like some abused child. W-Well, that being said I suppose I am one but... but I would... rather not think about that. She was hurt too—she was... _abused_ , too.

It does not alter the way I am, thinking of her, missing her... wishing her safety. Was that not something Luk retorted back to me over, when we all began this journey here? When the loss of her was still a new wound, greatly repulsive and mind-sucking to think about? That I cared too much, that I was going too far—and again, an echo chiming of Dinu—is she not _just another girl_? Is that not what Zoazoa so blatantly asked us... so recently as well?

No, oh, dear, do not make yourself cry, Rupert, that is pathetic... oh no... I cover my head with my hands, grateful at once for the darkness, for the silence. A weak laugh trickles out of my lips alongside the tears.

And of course it must be here of all places that I begin to detect a voice, and footsteps, patterned down the tunnel. A wisp of sound, too little and too weak to catch, but enough to perceive, enough to denote, enough to know, heart trembling inside of me that once more I am not alone but in the company of yet another stranger. S-So many of them... I-I suppose that is _obvious_ but that does not make it any easier to take in... ahhh...

Frantically I wipe back my eyes and strain again into the darkness: there—a hot sliver of light streaking down the side of that wall up ahead. It turns to the right, flowing upward somewhere, and by the ricochets of the heavy voice I would presume that a chamber lies up ahead there.

Grumbling. Insults. Feet not moving but dragging themselves forcefully through the cavern. A scoff, then a cough, then another loud grumble. This I catch: "Idiot brother, running around like this..." More snippets of words: "He knows the Complex is too big for him... too big for _anyone_ , really, geez..." Quiet scoffing, more muttering.

This appears to be a highly unpleasant person. Oh... dear. I admit, though, that his voice is rather calming and small and he does not sound all that violent or crude. Just... surly. He may not hurt me when he—ahhhh... that is right. He will _see_ me soon. And if I move he will _hear_ me too. Perhaps he already did, what with the quiet gasps I still fail to stifle as I force a lid on my feelings.

Like a ghost the light furthers upon me, fickle on the edges but still very real, very warm. A foot—a-a _clawed_ foot—cuts around the corner, and so does a lantern gleaming superfluously in a clawed hand. Paw? Fur—Fur on the paw. I would have mistaken him for a brave nomadistinian venturing out of the kingdom even with all of the ancients amok were it not for that sharp claw.

Beady, dark eyes make quick use of the smudgy shadow in front of me: a final scoff, when he spits at the wall, and he mutters, "And who are you now?" A low, scratchy tone: his surliness hits me without any sort of filter.

"A-Ahh, I—that is..." No—Not now— _Rupert_... "I am but a hu-humble human searching for a girl I believe ran ahead of me. You may have—may have seen her."

He doubles back at my gaze; I catch my sincerity in the reflection of those little dark eyes and flinch myself. I hardly know this person, yet... W-Well, I have changed. "Hurrrh. Didn't see no girl, but there was some faint thingamajig of one floatin' round past me earlier."

"O-Oh!" I flush, heart pumping. "That must be she you saw. My apologies." And his furry brown muzzle crinkles—a frown—at my excitement.

"Uh. Good luck finding her, she's really freakin' fast, y'know." The creature shakes his head slowly. "Whatever. You seen a little moel pass by somewhere? Bout yae high"—raising his paw to a measurable chunk above the ground, the size of a small child.

Moel... I feel that I have heard the term before. Underground... race? Were they not? Yes? I think so. He—Perhaps he built this tunnel... or something. "N-No."

"Ahhh, dang, I went down the wrong path then." He rolls his eyes and throws himself around toward the path where he came from. "Guess you're up with me then, huh. Cuz that girl went up here somewhere, can't say where. Bright li'l thing, ugh, hurt my eyes." Another faint scowl. "Name's Lemo. Searching for my brother... _again._ This must be the second time in as many days... gah. He's O'Mel. You?"

Some small part of me pulls back at his gaze, his clawed feet continuing up and right again, but I find myself soon going after him. "Rupert. The girl you came across... her name is Dina. She is in... danger." I swallow. Lemo twitches somewhat, his face attempting to cover up his recognition. My heart trips. "She—An ancient stole her body. I want to save her. She means... a lot to me." I glance back at the smooth cavern wall, trailing a finger along the simple edge.

"Hunnnh." His scratchy voice buzzes by my ear. "Y'know, this is just me saying things, but I doubt that running after her's gonna save her. I'unno, though, you seem pretty confident. Actually, wait." Another look over me. "No you don't. Never mind. Heck if I know what the heck I'm saying.

Then he pauses, brooding. I can feel him trying to decide whether to tell me this or not. "Say... y'ever heard of a Vivosaur Island?"

Vivo—What? "O-Of course I have." Though I suppose he would not have a way of knowing how I do. Yet another person who does not recognize my fame. There are... so many less than I thought there were. H-How relieving... I have seen enough places to know where the area is. My father did try to inflate my reputation through that orphanage nearby... I remember that well. He thought it would be wise to plant my position like a seed into their heads so they grow up supporting me... though I doubt I gave _them_ much to remember.

That and tournaments, and fighting, and winning. Relentless winning. A... dark life.

"Then you've heard of Dino, I bet. It's pretty hard not to. He's gotta be the biggest idiot out there, he gets into so much freaking trouble. He's screwed with O'Mel, like, twice now. Not a lot of fun. Then O'Mel gets into trouble...

No, I... have not heard of this... s-strange boy, but Lemo does not seek approval here. "Aagh, he's just... he's something else. Was going in the direction near this place, if you'd believe it, but we left before he did, took a different turn. Wonder where he's going now—But anyways. He has a similar problem, if you'd believe it. Yeah, Diggins was telling me all about it, he and Vivian both."

We begin to enter a large chamber, leading off into a number of openings. Lemo, so focused in his story, hardly notices this and dutifully continues his rant. I think he forgot I am even there because he yells back at a pillar for some few seconds about these _Diggins_ and _Vivian_ people.

These names escape me as well, but... the similar problem he vaguely mentioned does not. Does he... mean that... "Well anyways. Enough on _them._ Apparently the dinaruns or whatever the heck they're called, dinorans, like, _created the world_ or something crazy like that over millions of years ago and they're only just showing up now and that actually makes no sense but I'm not the one that came up with this crap, believe me." He comes off so miserably honest that I do.

"Anyways, _they_ or one of them or something _threw the ancients into a flux_ and now they hate us I guess. I dunno. It started with Bartholomew Bullwort, just when we started hearin' about them dinorans he lost his wife and his mind alongside her, wasn't much fun, that poor tur—"

"What poor turd?" pipes a voice whose footsteps I swear I did not hear coming. I turn blatantly and run into layers of wet, dirty fabric, a curly-haired face smiling up at me: ah, Todd. "Hi, Rupert! Your new friend is... weird!" He sticks out his tongue at Lemo, who unceremoniously sticks his tongue out back at him, flourishing it in a way that suggests the move has been used hundreds of times.

And it probably has, what with the younger brother he mentioned. So has the snobby tone he now wields. "Ahh, dang, Rupert, did your friend have to be such a snot? That's a real big disappointment. Gaah, whatever," and thus he shrugs it off, as he does everything else.

Todd ignores him. "Ruupy, did your vivos get all quiet tooo? I-It's not just mine, right! Mier said it was probably nothing but maaaan, Mier's not always right!"

"I am too always right," murmurs a casual voice as a second figure saunters out of the tunnel. "Hey, Rupert." He proffers a hand to me. "Hey, Rupert's new friend," sort of waving in his general direction. Todd is given no greeting other than the crude one Mier used as an opening.

"Awww, you are _not_ always right! Scr-Screewwwww you, man! You were wrong about the Dina thingy thing!" Sticking out his tongue back at Mier now.

Lemo gives him this look, like, _geez, what a brat_ , and Mier snorts, doffing his head at the moel. "Yeah, I get it, but I mean, I've been alive over two thousand years. So you might wanna listen to me more than you do."

"Rupert, I don't know what the heck is wrong with all of your friends but maybe you should ditch 'em, unless that last thing was you trying to."

I decide that Lemo is not as bad as he appears to be.

It is not long after that Pauleen and Luk circulate into the chamber, and then that is... almost everyone. I search over their faces and scoot over to Mier, asking with my eyes about the missing parties, and he leans over to murmur, "Zoazoa sort of lost it and Dinu was trying to clean it up once we realized we were of no help. Stuff's... getting messy down there." At my worried stare, he giggles slightly. "Hey, don't worry. They'll be fine. Dinu's strong, Zoazoa's incredibly strong. They'll get out of it alright."

As if waiting—and he most likely was—for our conversation to end, Lemo speaks up immediately after. "Well anyways, I'm not starting over, you'll just have to deal. Where was I, Rupert? Don't lie. That sucks, and I'll figure it out eventually."

I would—I would not lie, not after my father and all, but I recall that he has no way of knowing that either. "You mentioned Vivosaur Island, and..." Which name did he bring up last... ah. "Barth...olomew Bullwort." He used to be a formidable fighter. His brother, Saurhead—I cannot say what his real name is, he never mentioned it—and he were both a force to be reckoned with. When Bullwort disappeared from entries to battles, I never... realized something horrible may have happened to him. I was still quite small at the time, but... goodness...

"Ah, right! Lost his wife and his mind all in one blow, not to mention his son's trust, thanks to the ancients." A swift glance back at Todd, and he mutters, "The poor _turd_ ," his gaze hardening. But Todd has gone quiet, the severity of the story a sudden shock, so he has less to worry about than he thinks.

"Now, moving on..." Lemo grimaces. "What else did the dinorans do? Yeah, we're talking about space people who did crazy junk, you newbs. Can't really remember... what else, outside of the whole create the world and screw the ancie—Wait, well, _yeah,_ Dino—that guy I brought up—he awakened two flipping ancients on his own and even managed to revive one. Like, in a _medal_ and stuff. Crazy business, the dinorans. Dino used to be pretty immature until then, I heard. This is all second hand so don't expect me to fill in the holes. Probably should've brought that up earlier." He half-mutters the last part to himself and then disregards it.

"In... a medal." Mier hardly utters the words. I glance up at him. His eyes... wide. "I don't know if that's true, you. Ancients are... messed up. And way too old. And... _really_ messed up. Like... s-seriously. There's some... problems with some of them, you can't just contain that sort of force. There are... There are some vivosaurs that are bad enough alone, t-rex, krona, tarbos, allo... heck, even carchar's sort of menacing"—touching over the names in a way that suggests he once had a connection to each of them. Like... Aladee.

Lemo has nothing to say to that. "If you don't believe me, you'll have to see for yourself sometime. See, what I was _trying_ to say was that Dino's insane and he's been going around like a crazy guy looking for... his sister. Diggins mentioned that a few times, looked kinda sad about it I guess. I'unno, s'all second hand."

And then I... I realize that I have heard the name of this boy before. Once, twice, sparingly, uselessly. _Pippy_. Pippy, now silent in his medal, too weak, perhaps, too hesitant to break out of his state to acknowledge the fact that the fighter he brought up so long ago is still out there... searching.

We _both_... are searching.

Strength in bonds... how much would it take for someone who can literally call ancients, the first of the vivosaurs and the greatest of their kind, to his own weak mortal bidding? What... What _are_ these... these... dinorans..?

Literally... call ancients. Is that very different from the power it would take to force yourself outside of the ancient's touch—the one who possessed you, may I add—and stay outside of her range? How... _difficult_ would that be? Wh-What are we up against? What is this... level?

I wish... I knew. Dina saved me. She changed the way I saw the monsters of this world, who I let lead my life astray... and she saved me again when Zongazonga overtook my very soul. And in little ways too, little things, her smile, her laugh... her quiet patience... it exhausts me to remember these things, to remember that I-I lack these traits in my life now... when I just want to see her.

She must be so... cold, and scared, and lonely right now. Oh—Oh... no. What if she comes back, then? Dina...

Lemo stirs, then, from the brink of his own reveries. "Yeah, crazy stuff's been happening around here. Innit? These _dinorans_ just pop outta literally _nowhere_ and screw all the ancients over and apparently they have the power to _stop_ them too... it's like, what's the point now? Weirdos. It's annoying."

"Oh. That's weird." He jolts, glaring back at Todd, who giggles. "It's funny you say it like that, though... with a little brother and all." Confusion greets him; the boy giggles again, eyes straying to the ground. "I mean, he's annoying too, isn't he. And you apparently have the power to... y'know. Stop him. Though he doesn't always listen, I bet... since he's a little brother..."

Recognition; the moel stiffens. "Ahh, shut up." He glowers, turning away. "He's not the one who ripped open the world as we know it. I guess I can't have much of a say since I don't do nothing about it anyways, but it's true, if you think about it. Bah.

Evidently, Lemo dislikes this topic of conversation, and he uncomfortably shifts it. "You know what? I need to look for my brother and you guys all have your issue with the possessed girl anyways." He glances down at his lantern. "Y'know, I don't really need this, and you probably do. I live underground. I see everything in pretty good detail..."

Luk, dubious, mutters, "Then where the heck did it come from?"

"Some friends." He brushes it off. "I dunno if you'd know him. Probably not. You guys look like a whole bunch of idiots. Ehhh, that being said... Nice idiots. But, y'know. Still idiots."

My friend closes his eyes, simmering. "I didn't ask for—Ah, whatever, forget it." A mock grin twitches on his lip. " _Thanks_ , I guess." Luk steps up to intercept the offering but Lemo shakes his head.

"I ain't giving it to you, you cocky turd." Luk steps back, winded. "Rupert was pretty respectfully quiet, 'xcept for the whole stutter thing, but he can have it I guess. He's... He's okay, oh, _and_ he listened to my whole story without interrupting. Hmmph! There's a reason." A flicker in his gaze, the dark beady color suddenly brightening for a second. "Anyways." When I near him, a little nervous, he hands it off easily. The iron handle is warm where his furry paw held it for so long. I wonder... where he got it from. "You take care. The Complex is a lot more annoying than it looks. Us moels do our best... but you know.

He pauses, then, to look at us each, carefully traveling across the chamber to a second corridor near the tunnel we all entered through. He must have taken a gamble between the two, in search of his brother: for someone missing a person so important to him, he appears not to be in much of a hurry. "Seriously, though. Take care." And as he passes into the tunnel, his silhouette quickly materializing into the vortex of black below, a chill crawls up my spine.

Such... delicate words. The way he looked at me before he walked away, the sincerity beneath his eyes, the terrifying sense of truth, the ask to believe him... something about it sobers me. Until Mier clasps my shoulder and gently nudges me ahead, the lantern dangling between my cold, slowly warming, hands: then I awaken, then I stand. Then I glance up to the tunnel in front of us, the one leading further upward.

Something deep inside tells me she went that way: a feeling, sharp instinct that it must be so. And that is what Lemo suggested, no? What a... strange creatu—moel.

When a voice halts me. "Hey—can... can we wait for a second? I'm still... a little out of breath."

Todd. I glance back at him, his lowered eyes, his flushed face. "Well, if you need to," mutters Pauleen. "I diga-don't mind waiting a little longer."

"We should..." I twist at my lip. "We should... not wait too much longer, though. To find Dina again."

They must all feel it in the air: the charged, stuffy sense of no good up ahead. Lemo, for all we know, may be the only benevolent entity we meet—as gruff as he is—on our way up. But... Zoazoa is certainly coming. And Dina has gone and... I worry what the meaning he told us of was, of how ferociously he muttered on _ancients_ and _power_. Like... he needed to take care in saying them but he needed to say them too. A... warning.

Only worse lies ahead. While I have mostly recovered, and the others as well, Todd remains red-faced and shaky, his nervous eyes scouring the chamber for something he cannot put into words. Then eventually he sighs. "I... sorry, you guys should go on. Rupert's right. We can't all just... stay here forever." Eyes heavy, voice light. "I-It'll be fine. I'll catch up... um, later." And with more a grimace than the grin he was trying for, Todd fluffs his dress and sits himself against one of the walls, balling up his legs and wrapping his arms around them, staring into nothing.

"A-Alright," I whisper. And that is it, and that is all, and then we move on.

To the one tunnel leading up. Five, I notice, go down, in the streaky light, but only this last one... I suck in a breath, holding it in for a moment before release.

Mier strays near me, his face solemn. He quietly asks, "Is this a good idea, though?" as we enter the tunnel, shadow plunging about what edges the lantern does not reach. I clasp the cold metal of the handle tightly. The body, a small light contained inside—what is that?—electronimite, if I am not mistaken—is bright deep within the glass walls. "Rupert, we shouldn't... leave others behind."

I breathe in slowly. "Yes... I know." _However_ , like a hook, hangs high, ready to snag me. "Todd... did not want to continue."

"He didn't say that," he counters. Not angrily, though. Not forcefully. Just soft, then.

"Because he does not like to admit it. He never did before, and... he did overcome it once, with Illit, but... who can blame him, Mier? This is... a mess. You can feel the fear oozing all around us... Maybe he does not want to keep fighting this battle any longer. He already did his part, multiple times. If... he realized he cannot go on any longer, then he cannot."

Mier pauses. "Mmf. That's... funny." A sliver of understanding in his gaze. "Well, I guess you guys already knew each other."

A slight smile bursts upon my face. "Yes, it... it was, then. Todd used to say he had stomach aches from the... strangest things: a... moldy banana, sun-dried... shells? Were they? I cannot recall very well. He was... He was something else."

"Pff... at least he's not lying, then. He did look pretty tired."

I nod softly. "Yes..."

Mier is not done yet. "Ah, don't be so quiet about it. Rupert, _you're_ the one who, like, pretends he doesn't even _have_ a... a freaking limit. I mean, geez. You get scared off and get stuck in the freaking snow woods somewhere and then come back after trying to show up a few ancients, not really managing anything of note. You break your foot and don't actually care, you're... geeeeez, you're too much." Smiling softly, he shakes his head, pink strands of hair whooshing around.

"Di-Dina... means a lot to me," I mumble, cheeks hot.

Another voice breaks into our conversation. "Uhhh-huh. Little too much, _I_ think." Snarky... The boyish hint must be Luk. N-Not to mention that he is still against what he was back when we first reunited.

"I-It is not _too mu—_ "

"Yessssss it iiiisssss!" he cries, splitting off my hopes of altering his opinion. Stubborn boy... "Youuuuuuuu are too much! C'mon, Rupert! You have to admit that you're practically killing yourself over this!" And while a hint of tease sneaks into his tone, the majority hits me hard, and I think of the boulder that did not but almost impacted upon me when Zoazoa threw those stones at me earlier...

My voice goes quieter, stuck half-hiding in my throat. As we go further uphill, our words are weaker, more sparing, breaths puncturing in between. The lantern hits at my legs every once in awhile, and I flinch back at it. "Luk..." I wince, muttering, "I am fine. Do not... worry so much. I have gotten this far; it cannot possibly be much longer."

"Mnnnggggh." I feel his eyes burning into me. "You say that, but... but... Rupert, I don't know..." He lets out a breath, panting slightly. "I feel like you're... losing your mind or something, over this one thing. I-I get it!" Quickly interjecting, breathing wildly. "I get that you love her—o-or _whatever_! But you're... look at you. You're cold, you're... really hurt, you're a... mess, Rupert. You're nothing like the person I remember."

"I-I..." Luk... "I surely have not... taken such an awful turn, have I..?" I thought I was becoming a... _better_... person. I thought I was changing into someone who could... who could stand up for what mattered to him, who could open up to other people without being so... scared, so cold. Someone who did not need to hide behind a barrier... "I'm sorry, have I _displeased_ you?" I turn toward him and I know I feel it, the distant gaze, the fortress I put up around others... I feel it and I know he does too, his hazel eyes bright and wide and—

"That's... That's not what I meant!" Stricken. Luk is stricken. " _Rupert—_ "

Before I have a chance to turn back, to run, to—to—to anything—a hand snaps by my side, tightening on my arm. Brown skin, thicker, sharp nails. "Diga-Don't even think about it." I start; she goes on without a thought of it. "My _gosh_. You guys gotta stop screwing with each other. I am _tired_ of hearing it, so all of you just gotta shut up or learn how to talk right to each other.

Her emerald eyes gleam, trickling from Luk to myself. "I'm not mad at you, Mier, so stop looking at me all guilty. For once, you... diga-dork." He giggles weakly. "Luk, seriously, _chill_. Alright, I _get_ it, _boy_ , your buddy here diga-decided to go and get attached to a girl when you wanted to—whatever. You gotta chill about it cuz it ain't gonna change any time soon. At the least may I add that she's not a terrible girl at all—which I happen to know by personal experience, diga. Stop staring like that." And then suddenly her eyes snap at me. I jolt back but her hand is so... tight on my wrist. "Hey! Stop... running! You're not a frightened friggin _nasaur_ , Rupert! You're a... person! You gotta stop running away from your problems, I _swear_ , digadig." Finally slackening her grip, she tilts her head back and scowls. "Diga- _Damn_ you idiot boys."

Her voice holds a strange sort of softness, lips lingering on her sentence.

Something about Pauleen is scary enough to keep me from disobeying her... I-I sort of stare with wide eyes for some amount of time before Mier gently pushes me forward and I accidentally hit my leg with the lantern again and then it goes on, then we all start again.

The tunnel begins to level out and I feel a collective gasp of breath amongst our ensemble. My legs... are shaky. Ah... But... But is that another opening up ahead? I... I believe so. Then we should—We should go on. Thank goodness.

It is small, this next chamber, but wide enough for the lot of us to sit comfortably and rest, heads back, breathing deeply. Pauleen to my right, Mier to my left, Luk further past him. We speak not to each other but... but I think there is some form of an understanding. I am not... upset with him. I want to say it does not bother me so much anymore.

Quiet, then. Soft breathing. I watch over the chamber and note that besides the hole we came out of, there are two more entrances. At this point I can hardly feel outside of a hot numbness... much less any possible thought of were my dear girl disappeared off to this time. Zoazoa and Dinu still remain as missing as they were; Todd has yet to return, though... I doubt he will, save perhaps if my cousin forces him to. But... would she do that?

They must be just as exhausted as we are, if not more.

"All of this for a girl, huh," murmurs Pauleen. Her head is resting in a hand, elbows against her knees, curled around herself. "Hey, I know, diga... I know she's a good person and all. And that one guy, the Lemo diga-dude... he mentioned some pretty controversial junk. Remember that, digadig? About the guy with the ancients? Man, I wonder... Y'know..." Trailing off, nodding her head slightly.

"Mm..." I stare at the ground blankly. "I... as well. He spoke as if there was a... a connection between that Dino boy and... the ancients—and Dina, too, what is happening to her. Like... she is..." Oh, we knew something was different about her when that... form dissolved, and all of those scales and the tail were revealed to be... what she really looks like. N-Not that there is anything wrong with looking different, but... there must be more like her. Yes? She cannot even remember where she came from.

I wonder if... the boy has anything to do with that past. He... could. Yes? Ahhh, my heart is pounding thinking about it... This charged air, this sense of... foreboding... But he spoke of the boy far to the south. And if Lemo met him before, then it could not be he that we feel in the air...

 _Timp, timp, tim—_

Ah. Footsteps... approaching. Quiet, quiet, slowly louder. A faint light seeps in through the tunnel on the far side, pointing ahead of where we lie now—the other new opening is more behind us. I take in a breath and stand, slower, slower, faster, waiting. The lantern trembles in my weak grip, shadows splintering along smooth, muddy walls. I step again, and again and—there inside—in front of me—

she returned.

I cannot tell whether to feel wonderfully relieved or... or upset. "Dina—" My voice comes out shaky. "Dina... why did you—"

Her silvery white hand raises and cups my cheek. She cannot speak, and I cannot even see her outside of this lacking silhouette... yet here she is. Here she is now. My... beloved girl.

Footsteps break out from behind me. I feel someone peek over my shoulder, someone else by my other side and—and Luk just next to me, his eyes lowered. Dina steps back once, twice, her hands outstretched, and then she tears back violently and takes off down the hallway.

Luk squeaks. "What does that—"

 _TUMMP. TUMMP. TUMMP._

Hot, rank breath spills out among our little group. The blunette beside me stiffens, whispering "ohhhh not again" in a rush of words. He snags my hand and before I know it we shred through the tunnel after Dina. I glance back but—but where did—where did Mier and... Pauleen go? Not... after us... Oh, no, she didn't try to fight that... ancient... did she? _Pauleen_... I could see Mier staying with her, trying to convince her out of it but... but what if they... ahhh...

Luk pulls back from me. His eyes wildly toss back to the front of the corridor and he repeats, frantic, "What the heck did any of that mean, Rupert? What's... What's going on?" Fear, fear deep in his eyes, deep and thick and viscous, wet on his lips. I shudder, shaking my head, taking in a breath, mirroring his look.

"Y-You know..." My voice is pallid, a dry contrast to the heated slamming from behind. "Ancients. Ancients are... being attracted to this position—just like—just like Zoazoa told us they would be. She must be nearby. O-Or perhaps it is Dina. Their lives are in such... s-such _tandem_ at this point." I practically spit the word. Tandem.

The blunette shifts by me again. "W-Wild." A weak attempt at laughter; he cuts himself off shortly. "S-Sorry. Ahh. This is... This is insane. Rupert, we should go back. We should... s-seriously." In a split second he turns on his feet and snags my hands around the lantern handle, tightening his grip upon me. His fingers, tanner than mine, marked in small freckles, squeeze tightly over my pale, slender palms. Light spatters the walls and blocks out where his hands shadow over it. "Rupert, I-I know I get really rough with you but it's... it's just because I care about you, okay! I don't like seeing you get all beat up and stuff! It's... It's not okay! That's not alright!

His voice cracks. Neither of us acknowledge it. "You're... dainty and soft and... stuff." His face ducks back from me... bashful. "And... dang it, you know it already but I..." What intensity it is building up in his voice is lost. "I still wish I—I was—"

"You are not." I shake my head gently. "I am sorry, Luk, but... you are not." I... understand this must be hard for him to let go of, truly hard, but... but he has to eventually. Then I worry if—if somehow he felt the impression that I was leading him on, making it appear that we shared a bond that we did not, that I never saw, could never feel, running away and coming back... that was not a good idea, and I know this but I still... still I...

"Gaaaaaahhhh..." Luk presses his lips together, squeezing my hands tighter. "And now you're leaving again and... and I get the feeling you won't be... coming back this time. This isn't something you can just... take a break from. You're... You're going somewhere else entirely, aren't you... nnngh. _You_... _You're_ someone else entirely. And... I hate that.

Closes his eyes. Sighs. I feel his fingers giving away. "Ugh... I'm getting like that again—like Pauleen said... but I guess you are too, huh." Hazel slits open carefully to peer back at me. "Are you sure that's smart... Rupert? You're gonna... You're gonna probably get hurt again. Just like"—breaking the bridge between our hands, raising one to point at the scar resting at my jawline.

"I suppose I will. You... You must be right. But I... I..." I glance back, searching for—

"Yeah." Gently. Twisting the word. "Yeah... heh, Pauleen's gonna be mad at you."

I smile faintly. "It is... time enough for her to be. I upset Mier... and you... and Dinu I cannot count how many times."

"Heh! But... not Todd. It's almost impossible to upset him, I swear..." Staring off, a warm hue brushes over my old friend.

Growling reinforces the standings before us. Rocks shudder in their places among the walls. As smooth as they are... one cannot trust how well they will hold. The ancient is still very there... and I only wonder how many more are among the area. I take a slow breath, bowing my head. "Luk. I'm... sorry I was not and... wi-will not be the person you wanted me to be. Truly, I... I'm sorry. But um... please watch over the others for me, I... I... I am sorry."

Ducking my head, I push the handle of the lantern into his outstretched hands and step back again. "I need to... to find Dina. Thank you... Thank you, to _all_ of you, for bringing me this far, but I... I could not ask for you to do any more. We all feel it—the ancients, the intensity—Zoazoa—not to mention Dina herself... This is getting so dangerous." I shake my head swiftly. "Please do not ask me to stop. I-I _cannot_ , at this point. I... cannot. But you should. Stay back. Get through what ancients have already awakened... i-it cannot be so terrible, after everything we have been through.

Nervous, I press close to him, and I—while weakly—while clumsily—embrace him, just for a moment. "Stay safe. Th-Thank you very much." I feel more than hear Luk jolt with a gasp. As he stands there, blankly staring, soft, I turn and go.

And then it is just me. Just me and the quickly fading light, slowly replaced by a silver hue, one that strengthens if but slightly the closer I go. And I feel it thrumming in my heart, the sense of ancients, the sense of some sort of monstrosity concocting at the top of this towering mountain. But at this point I did not lie when I told Luk that I cannot stop any longer.

Another chamber opens up ahead and there she waits, hands clasped tightly in front of her. She sees me and relaxes, stepping closer again. "Dina," I whisper, and she nods, a warmth trailing from her glowing figure. One hand wriggles out of the knot she made and points to my right, to a second opening. We hold our breaths collectively as yet another set of footsteps come closer.

With them come a light. And in between the light and the steps I realize there is too much sound to merely make one person. Which—Which means—

"AHH, DAMMIT, THERE YOU ARE!" An irate face shrouded in both silvery and bloody red light pokes out from the second entrance. Blonde hair twists about her chin. Dinu's smile goes deadly as she stops by me, nodding slightly. She turns to face Dina and winces, pointing back at me. "You be careful. Zoazoa's—"

"Right there," I utter, and there she is. Thick, cascading shadows extend from the red surface and her own lips curl as she turns to stare at the other light person in the chamber. Dina stumbles behind me; I feel the heat of her hands curl around my shoulders, though... not the imprint of fingers themselves.

A pointed stare sharpens her features. She folds her arms over her thin chest. "I'm—I'm not a... monster. Just let me... get a little closer."

Dina stiffens. I cannot stop a slight smirk from entering my face. "Because that certainly does not entail the fact that you want her under your influence a second time. Because it is not as if you _touch_ her and thus can _kill_ her."

"Pffff..." Dinu slaps a hand over her lips. When she removes it, her expression has hardened. "He's not wrong, though. Zoa _zoa_ , I told you. You can't just treat her like your... pet, or something. Besides, you said you had chances to kill her... and you didn't. And she's... she's not there anymore—a-and that's... rightfully so." Her expression tightens, releasing a breath.

Zoazoa's eyes widen. Her fingers tighten around herself, hugging into the small, small body. She is... She is hurting Dina physically and... I think she does not e-even realize it... "No! She doesn't... She can't _do_ that! It's... _I_ deserve this body! I... _I_ deserve to live this time and... and now I'm ready to kill her s-s-s-so she should... get _over_ it already! Y-You too!" she screeches, suddenly turning on me. "GET OVER IT!"

"Sorry." My cousin grunts. "She's... a little slow."

"It is fine. Mier... Mier said that ancients are... falling apart. They have... problems. They are not whole. So I... I understand. I see it." With a small smile, I nod, and Dinu shrugs back.

Soft tapping on my shoulder. I glance back at Dina, her head hovering by my chin. She taps again, gently, her figure shaking. "Dear, what... what is it?"

"Oh. She doesn't know who Mier is," offers Dinu, and quickly my beloved points back at her.

"Mier is... a good person. I think you would like him." My little smile strengthens, and then I remember—"He painted this. See? This is... you." I gently lead her with a hand to the ground and rest my hands on the cast at my foot. While bruised and unraveling in a few places, the little smiling Dina still remains strong. Her fingers curl and a hand rests on the past, on her face, and she traces over it excitedly.

Oh, Dina... Her hand goes through mine when I overlap them, but I... I still feel it, the warmth built up deep inside of her. Such a gentle glow...

"I—I said to get over it. Listen to me..! It's _rude_ not to! You're all so... so... rude!"

My gaze snaps back to the ancient. Dina returns back to her position behind me and I straighten myself in front of her. Dinu, for once, situates herself next to me. Her sullen, dark attitude begins to hint again. "Shut up. He's obviously not getting over it." A low, hissing tone. Sharp eyes, angular face. Her expression pinches and she mutters, turning toward me, "Come on. Let's go." She does not ask if I feel the ever growing barrier. We have yet to succumb but like tiny hands I feel their chills touch me, curling, and dig into my skin.

Dinu... She must feel my gratitude, for a snide little grin cuts into her lip. She mouths _you're welcome_ and I glance off, blushing. But I think about it and then I turn back.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Dinu?" I whisper. As we fill out into the next tunnel, our sides bump. Dina strays ahead, glancing back multiple times at me, at she, and always watching the ancient behind us.

She rolls her eyes. Moody—no. Brooding. Thinking. Her lidded eyes flutter and she mutters through a half-closed lip, "Yeah." Pause. She scoffs. "I have a reason too, you know. I mean I... didn't. At first. But now I do."

Oh. "Zoazoa." And I must be right, because a scowl curls around her lip and she grimaces.

"Well... yeah. Duh." Snort. "She's... an idiot. But she got attached to me. I... kind of like that. I dunno."

"But... Dinu, you know that—"

Her soft growl cuts through my words. My tongue goes dry. "That's why I need to do this. Convince her, or something, that she can't... keep hurting your stupid girlfriend. It'll... make things easier." Her eyes lower. "She... She's pretty stressed out about everything. She sucks at... explaining what it feels to her, but... she's not the monster, either. I mean... is anyone?" Dinu snorts. "Well. You could say it's Zongazonga, I guess, but... I don't know. I don't feel like... hhhgh."

"But... what about my father, Dinu? And your parents? Are they—"

"Ghhhhh..." Quiet again. She wets her lips, rubbing at a smudge on her cheek. "It's... complicated. But I sort of pity them. That's... That's all there is to it." And with that she glances behind her, back at the girl with the dark, dark eyes and the thin, bruised body, the matted hair and serrated smile.

When I think about it... I can see what she means. But then I turn forward again and I see Dina and I remember what _she_ did to Dina and it is hard to remember what Dinu told me. I never saw my cousin as... forgiving. But there it is, and it is here that I recognize that... I do not see it in me.

Well. That is fine. That is... fine.

An opening pours out and... I feel the chill of snow biting outside. I nudge Dinu and gesture ahead and she nods slowly, mouthing _ancients_. I nod back. Something is... ahead. Something bad. Something... terrifying.

I glimpse Zoazoa, sucking in a breath. Whatever lies ahead... I worry what it will do to her.

Her eyes smolder. She twitches at my glance. "S-Stop staring." So I turn again and we move on.

The wind blows harder and harder until we enter a ledge of the mountain, snow crunching at our feet, breath billowing white in our faces. I recall my foot, my bloodied foot... numb again. I hardly remember what the pain felt like... But an imprint.

Dinu shoulders ahead. Her gaze flies from Dina to Zoazoa, back and forth, cheeks puffing. "Do any of you... hear that?" Faint, faint whisper. I hardly catch it.

Closing my eyes, I listen, intently—and catch a snatch of a gnarled tone. Words are a mystery, but... intent is not. Such a stiff, gruff tone... such an ugly sound. I step closer to Dina. She hovers by me, shivering. When her body comes closer, she flinches, scooting close enough that her shoulder dissolves into my side.

Zoazoa stares up where our path ends. "U-Ummmm... what are we... doing?" Her voice is loud. I wince.

It is not until we step closer that the amount of danger is prevalent. Colors swirl in the sky, faint edges of limbs, of tails, of eyes the size of my entire... body. Coiling muscle thickens with the light of the moon, sinking, sinking, the sun picking up from its place behind us. Only a sliver, though... only a sliver of light shines upon the face of the thin, haughty creature in the midst of all of these ancients.

Golden eyes, a metallic gold— _cold_ gold—like a metal—an unfeeling metal—crawl over to me.

"Ruuuupert." Voice cold, hard—also like a metal—the purr a tone I wish I did not recognize.

But Mier was right, of course. Luk, Pauleen... Todd. They all were.

One cannot run away forever, huh.

Glancing back weakly, I decide against greeting the man who sired me. It is here that Dinu stirs, that Zoazoa gasps, her eyes a petrified amethyst. "No... No, no, no... you can't _possibly_ make me—"

"We're gonna fix all the shit you put on us, that's what," mutters Dinu. She elbows Zoazoa, and while her gaze does not quite reach Dina I can feel her fear rattling off in waves.

 **Woah! Spooky ending! Where's Pauleen! Mier! Luk! Heck, even Todd got sorta left in the dust!**

 **We'll seeeeee x3**


	34. Let's Just Stop

**Yay, special chapter! I'm still sort of (?) trying to mirror the chapters in TSFF in the way that there's a BB chapter and a chapter like this one toward the end (though the TSFF one was 38 but I'm not gonna be that crazy on point like they're still two different stories, haha) except not the whole Jkonna gets 5 chapters in a row thing, Rupert ended up getting a lot of two-chapter-groups but that's okay, the 5 chapter thing I didn't like, there were quite a few of them too... ahh... well anyways, heh**

 **Mier: then I bet that means I get the chapter right**

 **Pauleen: what are you—**

 **Mier: I mean obviously I've taken the role as Rupert's close friend so it only makes sense that I—**

 **Pauleen: would you actually get out**

 **Mier: ...that'd still be cool though**

 **Pauleen: well it's not happening**

 **Mier: ...alright I get it geez**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 34: Let's Just Stop

 _Pauleen_

I can't even begin to tell what's going on here when Rupert starts off after diga-Dina and it only takes half a second for the blunette beside him to net his arm and then it's both of them and in moments they're gone.

Oh, wow. That... That just happened. Well... that sucks.

He's not getting any ideas as far as I can tell but I elbow Mier anyways. "Diga-Don't even think abou—"

"I'm _not_ ," he mutters. He like tosses his head, his pink hair flowing. "You feel it too, don't you." And his voice lowers after that, his warm lull. "I'd be careful turning around in the next few seconds here." His simmering yellow gaze turns with his body, his face tight. I quickly mirror him and—oh—would you _look_ at _that—_ shining green scales and a half-transparent figure and oh, that's no fun. This is gonna... hhhhgh.

Mier's just about my height, maybe a little taller, so when he motions me to diga-duck I act soon after: a rippling green tail launches into the rock where our heads just were. Okay, so... so _that's_ solid, the tail, but... so far as I can tell, I think it's... it's just the tail. Well, for now, that is.

But the thing can't go completely solid or it's screwing itself over. Even at this point, some serious amount of its back is casually cutting through the earthen ceiling. That'd be wonderful if it happened to forget about that and diga-did go solid and... and got stuck or hurt itself super bad or... well I can't say I'd mind if this sucker got killed on the way diga-down. Hey, I'm no gentle soul. It is how it is and these things... suck.

A somewhat pale arm plants across me, waving to the left; we crawl off to that side. Still crouched and everything. I pull my hair over a shoulder and gesture back at _him_ then: no stepping on it. He snorts, rolling his eyes, pushing me back. After glancing back at the wad of scales over on the other side, he murmurs, "Ahh, he's totally watching us. I'd suggest splitting up but that would probably fail fast... so how about a no."

"I diga-dun _no_ ," I mutter, "seems it workedout _fine_ for the _rest_ of our people." Those... idiot boys. Ugh. I'd punch them if I diga-didn't know how freaking skittish the both of them already are. Maybe Luk'll convince them to turn back... Maybe Todd'll come up soon... but I mean, if we're honest here, Todd's not coming up, is he. I remember him. He's... a sweet boy, and he has a good heart and all, but... man, he's a weakling. A part of me's tempted, though: to go after him, to make him help us out here.

Strength in numbers. Y'know.

While he's busy staring at the ancient and the ancient's busy staring at us, I nudge him and whisper, "So when diga-do I unleash our, uh, cavalry." Sure, why not. Oni gets an upgrade.

"But should we?" His eyes follow the motions in that creepy green ancient's muscles. It's... a sauropod: stumpy legs, long long body. Not too long, this one, it's on the short side for ancients and even most vivosaurs in general, but, well, that diga-doesn't mean a thing. "I think the he's trying to tell if we're worth the effort. He obviously has more important prospects to put into perspective." Wait, _he_?

Well. "Of course we should. They're a _hazard_ and they _suck_ and therefore we should—"

"Says the girl who has one inside of her." Mier narrows his eyes. "I mean, how hypocritical can you get. Apparently—remember?—that guy from... _Vivosaur_ Island, or whatever, he's revived one or two or something. We can't go attacking them without a reason to, if... that's what we're looking at. We might have... have allies." Oh. Ah, diga-dammit, that's hope in his gaze if I've ever seen it. _Mier_.

Let's see if I can knock him diga-down a peg. "Two things."

"Yep?"

"First off, that thing went and very plainly whipped its tail at us."

He snorts. "Maybe that was instinct. We don't know. Again, what about _your_ ancient? And... well, as awful as it was, Illit didn't hurt me all that much in the end... so..." Soft sigh. "We need help, is all. We're like... screwed, without any help. So we have to work toward an open mind here or we might as well forfeit now." Ah. Geez.

"Not true."

"If that's your reasoning, it'd be more beneficial to assume everyone's evil and never go out, just hole up and—"

"Come on, shut up! You know what I'm thinking! Like... what the hell is to _say_ that we need help?"

Instead of answering, Mier's hand very casually intercepts my mouth and sort of stays there like that for a good hot few seconds. His eyes are on the little ancient sauropod thing, carefully watching as it—he?—shifts toward us, scrutinizing our particularly harmless selves. We're like squishy blobs of life. The exact opposite of those studded scales, those hefty limbs. He's easily squeeze the crap out of us if we let him.

So why'd he stop? If he keeps thinking like this then whatever the hell it is he's thinking about diga-ditching us for might be over by then. That's kind of ridiculous. An indecisive... ancient.

What's it Mier keeps telling us? They're broken too. They have problems too, or whatever.

Yeah. Well. _Whatever_.

He wipes his hand on his pants. "Would you not raise your voice?"

My face heats. I snarl. "I had a second reason, too." Glowering to some extent, he nods me on. "What proof diga-do you have that any of this is gonna end right? And the diga-Dino guy diga-doesn't count. We've never even met him, and let's not forget the fact that _you_ diga-didn't believe the guy either. Said so yourself." So I stick out my tongue at him, hypocrite himself. But... I guess it applies to him too, so maybe not. Ahh, shut up.

"Yeah." He diga-does that sometimes, like he expects me to know exactly what he's talking about. "That's... true. But it's like I said earlier: we're gonna need help."

I glance back at the other holes in the wall: just to the right is the one we came out of, and further ahead and left lies the one freaking Rupert and Luk diga-disappeared into. "We diga-don't have to keep trying, you know." My voice is soft. "There's nothing forcing us to continue but... well, save Rupert. He's the one who wants to diga-do this so badly. And I understand. I mean, he loves the girl. And... diga-Dina's a sweet girl. Really is." I lower my head. "But we've already gone through hell. Who's to say we diga-don't just leave now, get the hell out of here while we still can?" It's only gonna get worse from here on out, and it was already terrible.

It's... a lot to diga-deal with. Of course it is. Of course we're tired. Of course it... it sucks. But... diga-dammit, Mier, you diga-don't have to get so invested in it too. "You feel it too, I'm sure." He's quiet too, but there's this smug lilt in his murmur that makes me itch to punch him. "We stop here and... maybe we'll be fine but... there's so many of them. This ancient is one of... many." His golden eyes flash notoriously. "Of... _many_. You don't need experience with them to... taste it every time you breathe. It's... It's stinking up this whole place. I wish I knew what was going on." And his lip twitches then, a faint wariness in his face.

"So you're saying we can't leave at this point?"

Mier starts suddenly. "I-I don't know. But I'm not going anywhere." His fingers ball up together in a knot under his chin. "Maybe we should try and... try and talk to him. He hasn't quite done anything yet, so... so maybe we can try something."

"Sssssure." I grunt. Maybe it's just me but I am not feeling amped about this. Freaking Mier and his I'll-just-take-everything-in-stride attitude, and his _yeahs_ and his snide little grins. He acts so chill about everything but... diga- _dammit_ , he's so annoying sometimes.

The ancient finally diga-decides to shoulder on over to us and I squeak in this awful, shrill voice:

"Y-Y-You're talking to that bastard!"

Diga-Doesn't even respond, just nods me off like he knew the entire time that _this_ is what was gonna happen and _this_ is what he was gonna do, and he knew I'd get all nervous and he was just waiting for it, just waiting for the perfect moment to make me out as this huge freaking wimp but I'm—I'm not a huge... freaking wimp... This is just really diga-different and—and _scary_... ahh, diga-dammit, Pauleen.

He gives me a small nod, standing to intercept the green sauropod, just standing there up by the guy's snout. _Uhhh, hi there._ He's... a little shy. See, he's not—not perfect, not always friggin right. Gaaah, he's annoying. _You probably heard everything we were just talking about but you evidently haven't hurt us, so I... so I'd like to ask what y'all are doing here and if you could try and help us, um... understand the situation. As you can tell, we're pretty harmless._

 _Mmmmmh._ Soft humming. With a silent squeak I shove up by Mier and _totally_ diga-don't _not at all_ even _think_ about tightening my grip around him and like half hugging half hiding behind him thatdiga _-doesn't_ happen. This ancient is freakishly not evil. _I wouldn't say completely harmless. Your friend there evidently has a friend_ there _, inside of her. But I surmise that yes, you're worthless in comparison to the lot of us upstairs_.

Oh. Geez. That's... Well that's terrible. Mier diga-doesn't show it, the idiot he is, but I can feel a small tremor in his arm. _So, uh, what's the deal about this place, exactly?_ There's also a tremor in his voice. Tiny tremor, you can hardly hear it unless you're sort of crazy like me and searching for it, but it's there, I swear.

 _Too much, that's what_. The guy's voice is so diga-deep and booming, I feel it reverberate up my spine on the way out. Not... crude, though. Huh. I wonder if he spent so long staring at us because he was waiting for _us_ to diga-decide what to diga-do, not the other way around. Well... yuck.

He goes on gently. _I get the feeling you've seen it too. The stray girl? Zoazoa. And her host as well... She must be a factor. Her father was... Zongazonga was something else, that's what. There are few of us as powerful as she—and him, too. The most of us are rotting away up until now. Mentally... not physically. Not a lot of fun. You can imagine, if you lasted as long as us. Many like me are mere stepping stones from being simple vivosaurs ourselves..._ And he _sighs_ at that, like, well, _shit_ , sure _sucks_ to be _immortal_.

It's about here that I start to lose focus on the conversation. _Hrrrmp._ And there he is. Holy hell, Sivan, why are you still up: See, the thing is, Rupert's, like, eleven vivosaurs are quiet and Todd's are all quiet and even Oni's gotten kind of angsty about things, must be all the ancients or whatever Mier is spewing now.

But that's the thing. _Not_ Sivan. I swear. He's gonna get me killed.

 _Sivan, why? Just... why? Everyone else is resting and you probably need to chill too. Things are not exactly going_ well _, digadig._

But, well, being Sivan, he diga-doesn't have a word to say to that. He just sort of growls in that snotty spot in the back of his throat. He's got a glare in his eyes, this hateful stare, and I feel it somewhere in me that my eccentric smilo knows what's going on. Or maybe he diga-doesn't but he has a good idea. He keeps on growling, though, just softly growling in the back of my head, because that isn't diga-distracting at all.

Mier eventually elbows me out of this. He has this look on his face like _what the hell man_ and I kinda smile meekly, glancing off. The ancient diga-dude gets it; he chortles. _Your, ah, friends think right. With all of this... energy in the air, it'd be safer for them to stay in their little metal circles for now... Your yellow fuzzball is amusing. Do take care around him._

 _So um..._ One last hasty look my way and Mier's back at the ancient. _So I was wondering, ummm... Are you going over there too, with all those other ancients? You seem... uh, pretty reasonable._ He tries to stifle the wince that comes out. That makes me feel better too but I diga-don't try to show it. _What brought you... into this area?_

 _Mmm-hmmmff..._ He wobbles his great head, not really in any particular diga-direction. His tail, half-phasing through the wall, mirrors it. _Hard to explain. It's... like a feeling, I suppose. Not something easy to avoid._ Man... when he says it like that he almost sounds nice. And that... Well, that leaves an ugly taste in my mouth.

After elbowing me again—diga-dammit Mier—he mutters, _It's that... simple?_

 _Well. Yeah. It can be. The very air is like a poison here... ahh, it's too much power. Tires me out, drives us all here like cogs to a wheel._ He's so... freaking lax. _I'd look out, though, if I were you. I may be passive but that doesn't mean there aren't more... otherwise, out here. Stay quiet and it'll be harder for them to detect you... but I can't say you'll be completely safe with that advice alone. Like me. You're lucky it was me._

Sivan starts to growl like ten times harder and I choke myself just how much it... itches—almost like a fire in my throat. I cough, pulling back and landing on my butt. Coughs force their way out of me like there's hands, or something, jutting my mouth open, and my jaw... aches. And my eyes are watering... uuuf...

It diga-doesn't take long for Mier to jolt and pull diga-down after me, concern filling his wide eyes and tightly-pressed lips. "Pauleen, what's—"

But I'm—ahhh, gosh, I'm coughing way too hard to say a thing and by the time I've stopped it all leaves my throat so... so _raw_ that swallowing alone leaves me breathless. Sivan is— _seriously_ freaked out here, oh hell... _Sivan, what the hell? Sivan! Siiiiivvvaaaaa—_

 _Listen. You hear?_

That's all the help I get but it turns out it's all the freaking help I need. Our new passive ancient buddy sort of glances up and his snout upturns, beady eyes glistening. Mier goes still. He diga-doesn't even turn to look or anything; he's just cold, quiet. His eyes are all that flicker, diga-darting back and forth, listening.

The green sauropod stirs first. _That's what I was warning you about. Maybe some of us aren't all that... rambunctious, but, see... I'm just a mite bit of a pushover. I'd look out if I were you._

I'm completely lost but as it turns out my friend gets it immediately; his hands slaps over mine and he pulls me aside. I shred to my feet, diga-doubling after him, my thick pink curls rippling through the cavern walls and before we get to the other side or wherever the hell we're even going the wall cracks open, splitting like a grin.

A sideways grin, one of those ugly fake ones where you know they diga-don't like you and that's enough to make you think, yeah, you diga-don't think you like them either. Rock sputters out of the thick hole and crumbles off the cusp of two rugged openings. Mier latches onto my arm and turns me aside as the tail slams a second time into the wall, a long slit running through the side.

I rush forward only for the very floor beneath my rough, bare feet to tumble backwards; I fall flat on my back and scrabble for a hold I diga-don't find and slide all the way back to the other end of the chamber. Pushing furiously, I manage to pull myself to my feet with some sort of amount of success only for a second body to hit me next and I go sprawling.

Mier. His tanned face struggles before me, his fingers wrapping over mine and securing us. I stare diga-down at the ground and it diga-dully hits me, oh, this is... this is where the wall was a few moments ago. The diga-dirt in front of us, hitting at a steep slant, used to be this tunnel floor. Which... means...

Footsteps. For seconds I swear I can hear a voice, weakly calling out. "Pauuleeeeeeeeeeeen..! Mieeeeeerr..! Guuyyyyss..! Uhh... T-Toooodddddddd..?"

Oh, that's—that's Luk. He's... over... up there. Up where the floor was, where the _other_ tunnel was, the one they went diga-down, that's... that's blocked off now. I look back and the green ancient's hardly reacted. His body's been cut in two by the shift, but he's still transparent so nothing probably happened... It almost looks funny. A-Almost, if I wasn't... freaked out right now.

"LUK!" I cup my hands around my lips and I shove myself against the wall, which diga-doesn't move but—but whatever. "LUKKKKKK! WE'RE OVER HERE, DIGADIIIIIGGGG! WE'RE... STUCK!"

Mier wets his lips but stays quiet. Now that I think about it, he's a pretty quiet person. But... that's fine. I'm loud, so it works out.

"Paaaaaauleeeeeeennnnnn!" Ah... Ahhhh, he hears me, okay, okay. Great... thank goodness... His voice was just so _stuffy_ getting past the diga-dirt wall there... "Paaaauu...eeeeeennnnnnnnnnhhh! Whaaaaaaaat haaaa...ennned..?"

Wait... Wait. There had to be a second ancient, if this lax guy over here diga-didn't diga-do anything. And I'm sure he diga-didn't since the only time he even tried to hurt us hardly scratched the earthen wall... n-nothing like _this_... But the thing is, I diga-don't... see... a second ancie—

"LUKKK!" I'm shrieking, oh, hell, I am shrieking. My throat is killing me and only half of my words come out right and I'm in hysterics and I am shrieking like a sick bird. "LUK, RUHHHHNNN RUNNNN RUHN RUN HNRRU UUHHNNNNNNNNN!" I slam my fists into the was-floor-now-wall and scream it again for good measure. "LUKKKK RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!"

Somewhere in between all of my frantic screaming and heavy breathing Mier must've put a hand on my shoulder because I feel him gently tug me aside. We're both standing in front of the other cavern hole. I can't hear Luk... and I can't hear any ancients either, so... so maybe he got out of it alright. Rupert... could've been with him but I'm not sure... Rupert's pretty quiet too so... so I could see it, but... I diga-dunno... aahhhg...

 _You two._ Holy ffffffffuu—ugughhhh I forgot about that stupid green ancient he scared the _shit_ out of— _I warn you! I warn you. I feel tremors in the earth... the other ones hear us. Ah... my bad. I advise you to take that hole there out of the area... Do be careful. Many of us do not take... let's say kindly to you mortals. We've lived long, harsh lives and... well, it's easy to overlook you as pests. Stay quiet, now. I'll distract them when they come through._

I swallow, nudging Mier with my shoulder. He nods swiftly and tips into the tunnel first; I go after.

 _Whooorrushhh!_

It's like a—like a friggin _slide_ , oh my gos—

 _Whrrrrrrrrr—burrr—burr—burrr—burrr—burrrhhhhgggggggghhhhhhhh!_

A hard edge sluices out my cheek and I feel wet diga-down my face and it's freaking diga-dark like _really_ freaking diga-dark until I feel the faint burn of energy in my side and... gaaahh, Sivan... how sweet of you, now I get to watch when rocks puncture my forehea—

Tha-That is until a paw mushes it onto the diga-dirt below.

 _Si-Sivan?!_

And what else diga-does he diga-damn diga-do but growl at me, like friggin usual.

I must be half screaming— _again—_ here, so what's creepy is knowing Mier's out in front of me and not hearing a word out of him, not even, like, a really quiet gasp or anything. He diga-oesn't really cry out when a rock diga-donks him a good one, even when I diga-do when it hits me; he just stays very quiet and very chill and very relaxed like this is a safe little kiddy slide and not this... monstrous nightmare of one.

When I spill out onto the ground, I'm... left surprised. It wasn't as long as—ohhh, right, the guy only turned out a lot of the one cavern, not the whole tunnel complex. So only... some of it got twisted I guess. I... I diga-don't know. My head hurts, that's what I know. As we brush off what few of the diga-dirt smudges haven't stained, I stroke Sivan's side. His fluffy yellow furs get stuck in my muddy hands, but muddy streaks also land on his coat so it's pretty even, I'd say. Mier takes one look at Sivan and glares at me, gesturing at his pocket.

"Heeey," I whine, "he's lighting up the room here, so unless you wanna try diga-doing all of this in the diga-dark I'd suggest you shut up."

Mier frowns. It looks kinda funny on someone like him; he diga-doesn't come off as the stern type, more a... calming presence, like a natural leader... almost. But then it's like none of us listen to him, not even friggin Rupert, so. "Don't you think you're hurting him? Pauleen... look where we're headed. We just ran into some pretty, ah... controversial ancients."

I glance at Sivan. He makes this really funny wriggling with his shoulders that tells me he's not particularly annoyed or anything, like honestly it's fine. "Sivan's staying. And that's that." And, being Mier, he gives me this pretty annoyed stare, but he also diga-doesn't say anything, so whatever.

"Your loss."

Geez. "Just because _you_ happened to hurt all of the relationships with your vivosaurs diga-doesn't mean _I'm_ gonna diga-do the same." And to cap that off, I pat Sivan's head again. He diga-decides not to reveal any hidden sense of affection, though. Grumpy smilo...

I miss Mier's reaction, but he goes stony after that, so far as I can tell. He's quiet when we continue on through the rest of the narrowing tunnel, eyes near the ground, head erect, stiff. Sivan strolls on behind us, glowing a comfortable yellowish red—oh, diga-duh, orange—and he's pretty relaxed so I'm not too sure what Mier's so uptight about.

Yeah, I get that ancients are annoying and ruin stuff, or whatever, and... and _stuff_. And sometimes I'm exhausted to the bone with the one inside of me. Even she's gone quiet... but... but still. Sivan means a lot to me and let him be out here if he wants to. He's fine. I think. Whatever, maybe _Todd_ hasn't diga-done anything and the same's true with Rupert, and he has all of diga-Dina's vivosaurs as well as his and that one seismo—but man, I'm sure diga-Dina herself would be pretty resilient on Torn or something.

Well anyways.

It's gotten pretty quiet again. Luk is who knows where, same as Rupert, Todd's probably the same place we left him, unless he got worried and tried to find us... tried to find us and met the mess we left behind instead. O-Oof. Todd... We—We fight a lot. Like siblings. Nothing mean, nothing snide, nothing that we actually mean to be of any harm. Just... honest talking. That's when we diga-do our best, when we're being ourselves, and... that's just how it is with us.

Huh. I remember now... we thought about... it's kinda stupid, but it's kinda cute, but—but we—we were thinking about opening some sort of clothing shop in the future together. Heh... specializing in diga- _dresses_ , of course. He was... really excited about the idea of it. And I was too. Really.

I've never felt so far away from the life I wanted... M-Man, we never gave diga-Dinu enough credit, cuz she's right. This diga-does suck. This is pretty scary. One of our friends would be diga-dead if it wasn't for circumstances and whatever the hell a diga-dinoran is. This is... wow, this is really diga-depressing, I-I mean, like, like... _seriously_! It is! This is... hard.

Well. Mier diga-doesn't even notice my slowing gait or anything, because he's Mier. Because I'm Pauleen. I rub at my eyes, at my swollen bruises and diga-dirty cheeks, and I try to clean myself up and it diga-doesn't really work but whatever. I suck in a breath and throw back my hair, my rippling pink hair and sigh and... and I'll figure it out, I'll figure it out. This is... diga-damn frustrating but we have to. We have to.

"Where are we going, anyways?" He's where he was, and I'm more by Sivan, so he's technically leading, but I guess neither of us have a clue where we're going... but still, there should be some sort of goal in mind. Like... Escape. Or Todd, or... Rupert And Luk, or Kill All The Ancients or... something like that, I diga-dunno, that's why I'm asking.

He's not very good about these things, though. "I don't exactly know any better than you do, Pauleen. Personally I'd like it if we stuck with what we were going for in the first place, something along the lines of figure out what happened with the ancients—which we dabbled a bit in with that green giant—and finding the others, or at least that girl y'all think is Dina. What, are you too scared to go on?"

"Sh-Shut up! No, I'm not!" Geez, what _am_ I, _seven_? "Diga-Don't try to cover up any of your lingering senses of diga-doubt through _me_! You're not..." I pout. "You're not gonna find _anything_ to hide behind _here_ , digadig!"

For some reason or another the guy takes a moment to turn and cup my shoulder. His face is gentle. "Alright, alright. Relax. Lower your voice. Seriously. You get too loud too easily. I understand that last outburst with Luk—besides, that ancient had already found us. But if you stay like this..." His eyes follow rows of rocks to the ceiling and he flinches back from some intangible threat. A hand raises to mimic a maw and snatches around his other wrist.

"Tch." I roll my eyes. Mier's... almost childish, in the ways he expresses himself. "I'm not really raising it. That's pretty quiet, for me."

"Yeah, yeah..." He waves me off. "Stay around _that_ level, the one you just used. That should be good." Only then diga-does an invisible weight roll off his back and let him loose. Those freakish gold eyes shimmer through Sivan's faint orange light, like he's searching for something that he knows isn't there but he's also not completely convinced.

I swallow. "Mier, you gotta chill too. You're acting like this whole place is gonna explode in the next three seconds." And while he was always pale in comparison to someone like me, and his voice was always quiet against mine, there's something about now that sticks in my throat and makes it diga-difficult to look him in the eye.

He's pretty nervous, for someone who's lived in an ancient for, like, forever, and knows _all_ the secrets about them or whatever the hell he keeps trying to spoon-feed us.

Something about his... vulnerability... It reminds me of Todd, and then—diga-dammit—my heart goes a little soft toward him. "C'mon. We'll be fine." I elbow him again, but it's softer this time. "Like you said, I'll just be quieter and we'll keep strolling on and... diga, it'll be fine." Diga-Deep breath. Those always help. "It'll be real fine, digadig, real fine. We just gotta get there first."

Maybe _I'm_ the one who's crazy because _I_ haven't lost my mind about this whole situation.

Yeah, but I diga-don't wanna think about that. It's... unnerving. I feel as if my entire body is standing on end when I think like that, like everything I've ever thought is some huge lie and it smears this sense of ugly all inside of me and... and it's no fun, and it's no use, and I better stop now.

Our path starts climbing again, and widening, somewhere, and I'm so busy walking through it that I smack my head on a wall and bump into Mier who then also smacks his head on another wall and it's some pretty miserable business. Sivan diga-does that stupid under-his-breath half-wheeze laughter that he knows I hate.

I step back and... oh. A-A fork in the road. Sh-Shit, which one diga-do we take? Glancing over at him, with his hand rubbing at the flow of blood on his forehead, I mutter, "Should we split up? I take the left one, you take the ri—"

"No." Right in the middle of his scraped and bleeding forehead, too. He cuts off my idea so cleanly. "No splitting up. That's happened at least twice now and from what we've seen, the results are catastrophic at best." He licks a thumb and goes on with his life, back to the cut on his forehead. It's a nasty cut too, geez.

Meanwhile, blood's probably shredding diga-down my nose and I diga-don't feel a thing so I continue too. "Yeah, but one of those paths will get us closer to what we're looking for"—whatever that is—"and the other one's gonna screw us over. Uh. Again." I think we've sufficiently been screwed over more than once here, so. "Splitting up might help."

"We're not splitting up." He shakes his head carefully, eying the stem of blood flowering out that cut. His is slowly weakening so I'd think mine must be too but I still diga-don't mess with it. I note that Mier can't look me in the eye anymore. "That's a bad idea. Alright? Not splitting up."

I close my eyes. "Okay, fine. C'mon, Sivan." And with that, we take the right hole, because Mier's sucky reasoning says that the one further ahead probably leads more up the mountain... or something. Hell, I diga-don't know which hole to go through, we were practically using chance.

"Are you going to clean you—"

"No. Ask again and I _will_ clean it... using the edge of your diga-damn shirt." Alright that felt pretty good I can tell why he diga-did it earlier.

He's silent after that. Sulking a little. Maybe. And it stays silent too, because I diga-don't have the heart to talk to him about much of anything, honestly. Mier's not a bad person. He's alright. But he listens and he tries to follow some sort of code that goes over my head. I'm not the kind of person to just listen to others, I'm like... if you're gonna make rules then it's my job to break them. Right? That sounds a little bit sad but... well, it is how it is.

You get raised some way when you're young and sometimes the things that happen then really set your whole life up out of it. See, it's like... he grew up all on his own for the most part, outside of Creepy Ancient Lady and those vivosaurs he mentioned, like Aladee, who never really connected to him that well. And maybe the occasional traveler, I have no idea, I just know that if I had to live in that much solitude I would probably diga-die.

Because I'm... I'm just not like that. I came from a tribe, and I was used to being around so many people all the time. I... diga-didn't have parents—they diga-died when I hadn't grown all that much up yet—but I had my tribe and I guess that's something that helped me.

Huh, that's right... Lemo mentioned Vivosaur Island. And I grew up there. Haven't... really thought much about the place in awhile. The Bullwort guy I sort of remember, though not really, but I never heard of some idiot who went around by diga-Dino. Sounds awfully a lot like diga-Dina, but y'know, it also sounds like diga-Dinu, and diga-Dinu isn't related to either of them, so.

 _Reminiscing?_

I sputter. _Baah! Sivan! You—You scared me, digadig! Diga-Don't sneak up like that, geez!_ What diga-did he... oh. _Yeah, a little bit, I guess. It's funny, thinking about how far off all that junk is and yet how much it still applies to me. Man, Vivosaur Island's really far away from here... I wonder why that kid diga-decided to come on over. It's not like either island's better or worse than the other. I mean, they both pretty much have good stuff and some bad stuff and... yeah._

He chortles in that unnerving Sivan way. _Every place is same. Good stuff. Bad stuff. Yeah._

 _Shut up._ Stopping, I swipe at him. _I just diga-don't see why the hell anyone would bother to travel all the way across the world just for a meager bunch of islands. Sure, I came from there too, but I wanted to get away from my past. I felt... angsty about who I was. I needed to get out, break some walls. Yeah? Besides, I had the digadig tunnels, and those things are amazing._ They're restrictive, though, you can't go into the ones that go across islands unless you get special permission or you're my grandpa... well, unless you sneak through and beat up the guards on your way out.

Yes I diga-did diga-do all of that.

"Pff—Geez, what are you..." Mier pauses, and I catch him flinch. "Ah. Sorry. I overheard your conversation."

I look back up to him, a little queer look on my face. Not that he sees it. "It's... fine? It's not like vivosaurs have barriers or anything. It happens all the time as it is." My hands knead together behind my head. Something about how nervous and secluded he is makes me all nervous and secluded too. Stupid Todd Effect. Everything is obviously Todd's fault now. "I'm just... from the digadigs. You've heard of them, I'm sure. Everyone has. And you're, what, _two thousand_ years old.

To a slight shake of his head I need a moment to pause. "You haven't? Well... Well, _wow_. Then again, I guess you haven't heard of Rupert either and he's sort of a big diga-deal out there in the real world too. Whatever." I want to keep blaming Todd for this sudden cramping sensation in my heart. "You've... reeeaaally missed out on a... on a lot, huh. The digadigs are just a whole tribe of people like me. And—And Jkonna... she's my friend." Y'know, her parents diga-died too, but she never told me about them. Jkonna... "She's... a good friend.

Mier turns to look at me for a second as I scramble up to walk by him and I swear there's this sense of... longing in his eyes. Like he feels me probing in on him, he turns back, his expression diga-darkening. "It's just... family. Well, actually, my parents are diga-dead too—like yours... but that's what the tribe's like to me too so... Ahhh, I ran away, though. That's what the breaking out thing's about. I felt like everyone was all overbearing and stuff and I needed to go somewhere diga-different."

Oh... gosh, that's right. Mier wasn't even around back when I had that _mask_ on. That's so... weird to think about. That mask—man, I stole that mask on my way out. It had this old spell on it that had to diga-do with giving the wearer confidence about themselves but it, like, slowly took over your mind... I wonder if an ancient put the magic on, then.

A part of me's so used to this guy that it's hard to keep straight when he showed up in our lives and when he wasn't even there. Like Luk, but Luk practically was since he knew Rupert for forever so... so it like counts. Yet... there's this other part that takes in everything that makes up Mier and gets lost in how... diga-different he is. How strange... he is. To the rest of us.

It's confusing. Everything is confusing and I'm going to keep blaming it on Todd because that's the easiest way to go about it.

Diga-Damn... I miss Todd.

"It sounds nice, though. To have that." A weak smile curves his lip. "Maybe it was overbearing... or hard at times, or whatever. But to have it at all sounds... very nice."

A lazy grin curls up mine. " _Well_. Can't say that you diga-don't share that with anyone now."

He pauses. "What?" Anyone from a mile away could see the nerves jumping out of him. This poor guy.

"Diiigaaaa, do I haaaave to spell it ouuuuuuuut?" And at this point his eyes have narrowed and he shoves at me a little. "C'mon, you can't diga-deny i—ihh—it." Caah, I almost raised my voice. Swallow that diga-down. We diga-don't want a bunch of ancients up in our faces. That would suck.

He's still playing diga-dumb, so I roll my eyes and go, " _Rupert_ , diga-duhhhhhh." I mean, how diga-dense can you get. Poor Rupy practically followed the guy around for weeks.

The tunnel started to climb earlier, but I diga-didn't even notice it until it started to fall again. Sivan's claws click as he skids on some of the rocks, muttering about little bruises on his paw pads. I trip once or twice and have to catch myself. Our diga-drop is getting steep fast.

Diga-Dammit... a diga-dud. I glance back at Mier.

But... but... Mier diga-doesn't react to anything that's going on. He has yet to nod or agree or like, smile faintly or something or even the whole slant in the earth and... and... if anything, I think he's gone cold. Aw, come on, Rupert's not that bad. He's... He's really not. I mean he gets annoying sometimes but he's pretty soft overall, and it's not like being passive-aggressive is really a problem for someone like him, it just... comes out _really_ unexpected and therefore _really_ fu—

"You can't... You can't decide that for him, Pauleen. I'm not sure if you know what you're talking about."

Wait a second I... what? "What the hell, Mier... I know Rupert _perfectly_ _well_ and he's certainly attached to you and I thought you were getting along _fine_. He really needed that, if you bothered to look up and notice."

"I—Of course I..." Turning away, he shakes his head slightly. Like he's waking up from a diga-dream. Forcing himself to. "Never mind."

"What the hell's going on? Never mind what, digadig?!" Diga-Damn, if this isn't confusing...

His voice has hardly wavered off of this quiet calm, but I feel angry heat simmering somewhere inside of him and I'm sort of wondering even though I know I shouldn't be if it'll burst soon. What kind of a _mess_ it'll make. "Rupert's... quick to distance himself. Illit happened and I lied and for some _reason_ that, like, triggered him and—"

"Alright, Rupert has literally diga-distanced _everyone_ , so like grow up!" I'm starting to pick up on the raising of my own voice but at this point it's all or nothing and I diga-don't care nor remember why he told me not to diga-do it. "Y'know, diga-Dina's been friggin isolated by him too, back when they first met, and let's just say that he _really_ diga-didn't like a shrill bastard like me for _quite_ some time! He's just another person and you can actually chill, he _ob_ viously cares about you!"

"I... I hardly know any of you." There's a freakish light in his eyes. "I hardly know _any_ of you and you must be the closest people I've ever had to me in my entire life. My... _entire_ life." Something tells me that if I say one more word—

Well. "Diga- _Damm_ it, Mier! Let's just go on our merry diga-damn way and—"

He harshly mutters something that I miss, a hand cupped over the side of his head.

"What?"

Oop. Maybe I shouldn't have—

Violent gold eyes zap their way into my very soul. "I said that this is all such a mess! Y'all just _can't_ stop now can you! I let you into my life and now you've... you've _literally_ destroyed everything in it! The _house_ I built and the _paints_ I used and the _peace_ I had and now there are _ancients_ everywhere and y'all _cling_ to me like you expect _me_ to do everything and when I offer suggestions you shut down!

I diga-don't realize I'm backing away until my leg bites into the wall. A squeak threatens to spill out of my lips and I slap a cold, cold hand over my mouth and as my other hand wipes back at the blood. My eyes are so... wide. W-Wow, I'm... shaking. Mier's never even... slightly raised his voice before at us. Not once. Not even when his cabin blew up cuz of that ancient. Not even... when we mistrusted him and lived under his very roof at the same time.

"WHAT IN THE WORLD _IS_ IT THAT Y'ALL _WANT_ FROM ME?"

Gaaaahhh... Stand up, stand up, stand up... I clench my fists and I mutter, "Maybe we should split up."

Something flickers in his gaze and something about that is a fist and it reaches into my chest and it rips my heart out and I snap.

"WE SHOULD'VE FUCKING SPLIT UP _EARLIER_! DIGA-DAMMIT! WE'RE GOING DIGA-DOWNHILL NOW, DIGA-DAMN IT ALL! AT THIS POINT WE MIGHT AS WELL FORFEIT _NOW,_ HUH, ISN'T THAT _RIGHT_!"

 _You're certainly making it easy for us._

I slip and slam hard diga-down on my butt. A sharp edge cuts into some part of me, a thigh, a heel, I diga-don't know.

It's so... quiet. It's horribly quiet, terrifyingly quiet, it's that quiet in the middle of the night when you wake up and you swear you think you think you _think_ there's a monster under your bed or a ghost in your closet only you look over and it turns out there is one.

When I swallow, my breath's cut short. There's hardly any room inside. Just a... gigantic knot.

Shit, I'm scared.

 _A dead end, you say. Hmmm._ My skin is crawling. _It's not a dead end._ My hair's on end. _Maybe I should fix that._ My—I— _I_... ohhhh, shit shit shit shit shit...

Seconds spill by before I slam up to my feet and start sprinting up the tunnel hole. Without even a thought about it I hear Sivan come to life after me, his breaths hot on my slick, bloody heels and somewhere behind Mier must be... must be...

Oh. He's not... He hasn't moved.

Oh, _frick_ , he _hasn't moved_. Why the _hell_ hasn't he moved.

It all comes to me on instinct. I lift into the pocket of my grass skirt and I sidle out of it the only other medals I have on hand and I toss them, and they go trickling diga-down the hill and then Mier reacts. His expression shatters and he glances diga-down at my medals and up and me and he faintly tries to shake his head and pick them up and pelt them back up at me but I keep running before he can.

It's when I collapse in this awful, awful fit that I realize what got me there so quickly.

 _Oni... Oni... oh my gosh..._ Hard to... Hard to breathe... Hard to... auuughh...

Her soft, feathery voice tightens. _We're not done yet._ And there's this... strange, sorrowful lilt to her voice. The slurring flow of her strength ebbs and flows with the tensity of the chamber and I start to feel my heart squeeze thinking about all of it.

Her flitting figure more diga-drags than helps me back toward the opening, back where Mier is with my other vivosaurs. Sivan hisses by my leg, a fear in his eyes so prevalent I think maybe I shouldn't diga-do this.

But I can't stop myself. Oni's... in control now. I skid out on my calloused feet, brown and rough like the rocks beneath them, but Oni's in control now and Oni's got a very diga-different idea about what to diga-do in this situation than I. So I glance back and feebly shoo off Sivan, whose face pinches into a funny grimace, with his great long pikes of teeth sticking out... and he follows on.

He has to be careful where he steps, his pads are so bruised, wincing after most ginger stops and having to try again, and again. Ahh, my poor Sivan...

And then I'm wrenched aside by my hair and I can't look at Sivan anymore. Wings extend out from my back—practically ethereal wings, a faint clear color only tinged in white. I feel the beak spout out somewhere above me, Oni's body strengthening around me, and I'm more by her spine than her chest this time after the whole Illit thing. Safely tucked away. Her talons sever through the air and she's almost completely transparent and not seconds after I watch a flaming forepaw plow through the rock wall like it's a diga-damn slab of butter.

Mier's somewhere behind it.

 _G-GO!_ I squeak. _GO GO GO GO GOOOO!_ And she acts, and I can feel the pleasure radiating off of her that I got over her taking over for a second there. But if she's saving _Mier_ and then _Mier's_ about to—

My mind snaps back to all the yelling he diga-did back there and... and I feel a little tug of guilt in my gut. Cuz... he's right. He's righteously furious. We never even _thanked_ him, really, for all he's diga-done for us. I diga-don't even know if Rupert diga-did, and if it was him then good for him, _just_ him.

There's something about Mier, something about his code of sorts. He never tries to step out of line for others, because hurting himself's against what he's going for. Why hurt himself to help someone else? Nothing happened, then. Someone's still in need.

Well. I-I get that.

And it looks like he... _Mier_... Diga- _Dammit_...

I'd yell at Oni to go faster if she hadn't already diga-done so.

With a burst of speed, her body slams and thus tangles in with the flaming one she's up against, and I feel her head slip through the rock wall with a shiver and stab back at whatever the hell was going at us. With my sight and her power and all of the vivosaurs milling around it's almost insane how quickly the flaming creature diga-disappears. We've... We've gotten good at this.

It was... fast. A-Almost too fast. _Too_ fast?

I raise my head to smile, or to laugh, or to say something cool—when there's still a tugging going on somewhere inside of me—inside of—of _us_. Oni's... Oni...

Wait. Wait... It's... It's like that green sauropod was telling us.

She's out and now she can't resist that _pull_. And she's.. she's a part of me now so it looks like I'm... I'm going with her.

But the diga-dead end. But the walls I can't go through.

This overwhelming sense of diga-dread sticks to my stomach. I reach out to Mier and this recognition sparks in his face and his arms swoon out to grab me or to catch me or to _something_ me and none of that happens. A wind. A wind so strong it knocks a whole bird over... a whole ancient bird over, strong enough to send me sailing into wall... after wall... after wall. It only takes a good four seconds for me to lose complete track of where I am and what's going on.

It hurts too much to diga-do so. Scrapes multiply up my skin and rake past old wounds to chafe on more with every single next bump. I feel red streaking past my cheek and fingernails of pain skidding through my skull and my poor, poor heels must be flopping around in a mess of flesh and bone.

Maybe I'd cry, if I could think long enough of it. Or maybe I'd scream. Or punch something. Or maybe not. My fists feel like I've been punching shit into next month and I can't stop... I can't stop... I want to... though.

Mier's words come back to me. His teasing, his quiet thoughts. The small smile and the out of place frown. I remember him bumping at me and asking if I wanted to stop here and give up and... and me getting all defensive, all like _no, never, not me,_ or whatever.

Ha-Hahaha...

I cover my face. These horrible, horrible laughs crawl out of my throat. My hands take all of the scrapes and bruises meant for my face and I laugh and I laugh and I laugh so hard my throat shatters and I lose my voice but for tiny little frail rasps. Gasps pop out but no laughter follows.

For the first time since I met her... I'm starting to wish I diga-didn't let her into my head. She's nice and she's helpful and she's saved us countless times and she's funny and she diga-doesn't actually want to kill us and she's not terrible like so many other diga-destroyed ancients and suddenly none of that matters.

And I... and I diga-don't know what to diga-do with myself anymore...

Air. Oh... air. Chills seethe into my skin and freeze my diga-dripping blood and I feel my chin slam into the rock ground below as I look up and out of the end of the tunnel and into the sky. Further off to the right there's this... this monstrous clump of color and smoke and scales and fur and and and... and I feel shivers itching up my body.

Coughing weakly, I watch as little streams of blood diga-dip over my lip. My mouth snaps shut, then. My eyes are sticky, hot, freezing blobs of goo.

Steps ahead and steps behind me. I glance feebly back at those echoing paws and I feel a shiver crawl through the majority of my wasted body at the sight of him.

Sivan followed me. All the way, up every tunnel, through every crack. Sivan... I unclench a hand and reach out to him and he hurries up toward me and runs his head through my hand for me. Concern sparkles in those quiet yellow eyes...

The other ancient—the one I swear we just mauled—pulls up and sits toward the top of this... this mountain. This snowy, snowy mountain.

I wrench my gaze back up and catch a warped reflection of myself in some... golden boots. My... face is gnarled. O-Oof... I can't look at it so I turn and face the snow.

Little bloody teardrops hit it eagerly, diga-devouring the white froth.

A hand crawls under my chin while I'm not paying much attention and yanks my head up against his sunglasses. A face hovers behind them but it's those glasses that make me whimper. There I am again, reflected twofold, each cut magnified in inky black light to really let me see what a number I diga-did on myself.

"You... I've seen you before." Quiet. Calculating. Cold and gruff and the kind of voice that sucks all the warmth out of the room. That makes snow seem warmer than he. "Yes, I... I have. And recently, too...

Soft intake. "You're Dina."

Wait. Wait—what the— _fuck—_ Wha-What?

He must catch my confusion, but he diga-doesn't really address it. "You are Dina, aren't you? That... dreaded girl. _She's_ the reason my son left me." What... What the... "Yessssss... yess, it's—it's all _her_ fault he's decided that nothing I've done for him matters, no, nothing at all, ahhh..." What the _hell_... This is... This isn't a normal human being... h-holy shit... "And there's your fire... _monster_ thing. I remember that too, the _bloody_ vermin. Fought me off when I tried to take my son and put him back where he rightfully belongs. He and Dinu both, with _me_ , with their _family_. Not... you whores."

...oh.

Oh, this is... Oh, this isn't good...

But I glance up and... and I see so many... stars—and they phase out and... and phase in and... ancients? Ancients, there's... there's so many ancients around here... where the hell is Oni... Diga-Dammit, Oni...

My voice is so weak I might as well be her. "Ye-Yeah... I-I'm... di—diga—diigh..." Swallow. "I'm her." Coughing breaks out.

He apparently is an... an idiot. " _Yehhhhssssss_." Rank breath spills all over my face. "And your... that's... _Torn_ , wasn't he. That's your Torn. Your vile... wretch."

So I nod to that too, tears springing out of my diga-damn cheeks like blood and then I realize no wait it _is_ blood...

The man shackles his fingers over my wrists like chains. "You. Dina. And... your ugly Torn. You stay back here. Somebody watch over them. I'll... I'll _use_ her and... and then my son won't... yes, _yes_ , yes... that should... that should..." Nodding weakly, frantically. "Yes, that should do it nicely... ahhhhh..."

He drops his hands from me like I'm a diga-disease, wipes them on his pants. His pristine... sparkly pants. Whoa, he... he must have a shit ton of money...

Sivan hops up by me and gently licks back over my wounds... or maybe now I am crying... I-I can't really tell anymore... It's so cold, and it hurts so much, and... I just sold us out. But what was... what was the other option... Diga-Death?

I-I...

I crumble into my hands.

And that's it, now. That's it.

 **that was really tense too... holy turd...**

 **That scene at the end, with our old friend Rupert's Dad (or Mr. O, if you remember that, haha), is something that I've had planned since almost the beginning of the series. XD We're getting into territory where like four or something of the upcoming scenes in the other chapters I haven't write also happen to have been thought up and tweaked and planned out years ago... it's sort of weird to see it all coming together, since it hasn't been for so long, but it's really amazing too... ahh...**

 **Poor Pauleen xD he thinks she's Dina... and Sivan's Torn, haha... (well I mean think about it he didn't pay -that- much attention to Dina when they met back in The Alone Champion. Also Torn was there. Mr. O just knew that Rupert was starting to get attached to her and that was a nono. Well anyways xD)**


	35. Ja: Soar

**Jkonna: PAULEEEEEEENNNNN**

 **Dino: she's not gonna like hear you or anyth—**

 **Jkonna: PAAAUULEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNnnnn**

 **Dino: dude**

 **Jkonna: whaat**

 **Dino: you can't get her attention by screaming loud enough, plus you're separated by a chapter**

 **Jkonna: shut up, I hate it when you're right**

 **Dino: ouch**

 **Jkonna: it's cuz you never are and never should be, you diga-dumb digadig**

 **Dino: OUCH**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 35: Soar

 _Jkonna_

I can't say how far away the weird tiny islands where Dino got punched are from the weird bigger islands just in front of us. There were a lot of them—well, hence the whole Mini-Vivaldi _Isles—_ but we diga-didn't figure that out until we were leaving and Raptin turned around to check for followers. Funny thing, you'd think if some jerk went and walloped you good he'd diga-double up on it or something but there was no one there. That'd be a relief if it wasn't so... creepy.

It's at this point that my vivosaurs start seriously shutting diga-down again. Foster can't even make diga-decent comebacks anymore, something I'm used to being shown up by only all the time. What's really scary are diga-Droplet's half-closed eyes; underneath the icy irises are fighting to keep open, but... but, man, there's not a lot she can diga-do about it.

"Dino, maybe you should tap into Thomas and Iggy's stores again," I mutter, tugging on his arm. "Diga-Droplet's literally tanked. She's gonna probably crash before she lands... um."

Awkward laughter. Oh, that's why he's staring like that; he's been watching this phenomenon for minutes. "Yeaaaahh... so, uh. The plan is to do that after she's out cold, so then we don't have to use as much." Huh.

"That sounds like a very bad but also sort of a good idea, diga." My slight grin smears into a smirk. "But also really stupid. I mean, poor diga- _Dropl—_ "

"This is _not_ gonna be another Harei, is it." His smile gets all huge and thin and it makes his eyes pinch at the corners in this diga-disgusting way that's pretty unnerving to look at. "You're not jumping off of Droppie and landing in some far-our corner are you." And he's half joking... but he's also half not.

Well. "No." I mean, come on. I'm just saying. "You're not ignoring me, which is... which is pretty nice. Also, there's, like, no ancients, as far as I can—"

 _Actually, there's two._

My face crumples like a piece of paper. _SHUT UP, THOMAS, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN._ I'd punch him... or Iggy, or hecking both of them if they weren't in their stupid medals. They can just... go _away_. Ungh.

Dino sucks in a breath before addressing me again. "Heh, that's... that's true. But, you know." His soft eyes are quiet. The swollen one looks half as bad as it diga-did on impact, which is awesome and all, but... there's still that inflation and it... and every time I look at it I get a little scared. That could've so easily diga-done even _worse_ , and it was already bad. "I'm just saying... that, well... you know we're getting into ancient territory. You know that soon enough we're gonna start seeing more—maybe a _lot_ more, like where all those other ones went when they passed by us. This isn't... something that's just going away now."

"He-Heh." I nod faintly. "I-I know. More like the exact opposite, huh, diga." And... yeah, it is scary, but it also has some pretty serious junk to diga-do with diga-Dina, and diga-Dina's important, so.

I start. "Heeey... what if—what _if_ when we get up there and show everyone who's boss and grab diga-Dina like the sorry diga-damsel in diga-distress that she totally is we like clobber _all_ the ancients and then... and then we win or s-something I diga-don't know." Hah. That almost sounded cool until I lost my nerve at the end.

"Mmm... We shall see." Oh. Raptin. He hasn't been talking much this whole time. He's... quiet. He's stayed pretty close to Dino, though; the whole punch in the face really spooked him, too. Both arms resting near him, those soft yellow eyes more often than not looking his way. "We should be on land soon. Does... Droplet fare well?"

Our voices started lowering again. I hardly even noticed... Dino shrugs, murmurs, "Yeah, she looks okay. Sounds okay, too."

 _You say that, but I'm... I'm, uh... I'm getting there._ Something that sounds like a gurgle sneeze.

 _Heeey_. Dino narrows his eyes. _That's, uh, that's basically looking and sounding okay, so I win._

She rolls her eyes with what energy she has left because that's just how she is. Also she probably diga-doesn't think so, which probably means we should hurry.

There's three entire islands when it comes to these weirdo... uh... Caliosteo places. Yeah, that. Plus a... pillar, in the middle? And at first it was like, man, which one diga-do we choose: There's the funky pillar one in the middle and the weird hot one on the right and the funny leaf one on the left and the super cold one up north. Like... heck? Well we chose to go to the weird hot one in the end for absolutely no other reason than hey, maybe, and anyways at least we're almost there now.

 _Ewwwww_ , mutters diga-Droplet, _the water here constantly feels like someone's peeing, it's so freaking waarm... aaaaaghhhh... this is terrible..._ Her bluish snout makes these really messed up faces as she gets through her sentence. I stick a toe in and wince. Slimy and slick like... mucus, ulhh, she's... she's right.

 _Just just don't fall asleep on us please_ , squeaks Dino; yeah, a whole _lot_ of help, _huh_. Oh, Dino.

With a grunt, diga-Droplet scowls. _It's be pretty hard to do that. This is too disgusting to not think about and feel violated. It's... It's so wrong. That stupid hot island with the volcano on it can just... stop. Ugh._

It diga-doesn't take much longer to reach the shoreline, maybe because diga-Droplet swam a little too fast out of spite. The rest of us untangle ourselves off of her and Dino pats her back and she's in her medal again soon after. Our legs—and the bottom of my tunic—and my hair—are all ridiculously diga-drenched. I cave and stop for a moment to try and stuff my hair into a big wad thing of what a bun sort of looks like; then that falls apart, so I end up wrapping it around me almost like a... scarf. It feels as weird as it looks.

Dino of course absolutely must call me out for it. "That looks so... weird. I bet it's gonna be a fad sometime in the future, just wait. Someone'll do their hair like that and it'll all catch on and stuff."

"That's... Gee, _thanks_." I roll my eyes. "You can't say anything rude, though, because you diga-don't understand the struggle, because _you_ diga-don't have long hair, you."

Of course this diga-doesn't really work out the way I wanted it to but what can I say, at least I tried. In our half-sodden mess of sorts, the three of us step out onto waves of sand that immediately glue themselves to our wet legs. I'm suddenly thankful for the whole scarf thing. Sand in my hair would... _really_ suck. Obviously.

The further we walk, the hotter it gets. Which... I guess makes sense. I look up and holy turd it's, like... it's nearing _morning_. When diga-did it _get_ to be _morning_. I swear it's still last night. What the heck. Last night we were still on the water. Last night Dino's eye healed a lot. Last night... Last night wasn't that long ago, was it? It's like a whole diga-different world today... man...

A few palm trees scatter out above the diga-dunes, so we flock to them like little kids and try to stay in those areas. The sun is coming up and the sun means business out here. Why would... Gosh, why would _anyone_ ever wanna live here. Sure, I've been to Mount Lavaflow and Mount Lavaflow also means business but this place is... it's so... it's just so...

Its temperatures probably are similar to Mount Lavaflow's and I'm just being stubborn because I can't remember how hot Mount Lavaflow is... It's been awhile.

Yeah, but there are some things I diga-doubt I'll ever forget about Vivosaur Island, even if I like move to _here_ and burn my brains out with this freaking sun. I'll never forget Rosie, and that... _look_ she had on her face when she realized we—okay, _Dino—_ was leaving. Or the digadigs; uh, diga-duh. Or... Pippy. Even if we diga-don't ever see him again. It's sort of a rule not to mention him because if you diga-do then Dino gets all sad and that's no fun.

 _Would you forget me?_

My heart makes this funky flop in my chest. _He-Hey, Foster..._ He's just been so quiet lately that I... _Well, you're... you're pretty hard to forget, if I wanted to or not, digadig._ I'm used to Nodopi being quiet because that's her thing. And the girls—Bliss, Bomba, Morie—I've known them for so long that sometimes we need to shut up around each other. They've also started getting muted but... but at least I can take it. It's just... It's hard... hearing this. _Foster, you're not trying to give me a reason you have to ask that, are you? Diga-Don't you diga-dare—_

He snorts. _No, I'm not dying. Vivosaurs don't work like that anyways._ O-Oh. Right.

 _Then, what's... what's going on?_

Quiet again. _The air's... heavy. It's hard to focus, and when you try to, it's practically like you're fighting yourself and it... and it sucks, that's what. Huhghhh._ His weird, gruff yowl, so uncaring it's usually pockmarked by yawns... it's gotten so soft. That should make me happy but honestly it's so unnerving. It's so, so unnerving to hear all of these voices get so warped up in my head. Th-Thank goodness we're gonna diga-do something about it soon, r-right...

Raptin glides over by me and points forward. Man, when diga-did he get behind us... "Do you see that?" he whispers.

"Huh? Uh..." I shrug. "Yeah?" There's this funny white stone thing shooting upwards over there, looks almost... ornamental. It's just from the side that we catch it but... man, my heart burns looking at those stairs. So huge, so many.

He sighs, form releasing. "That is good. I... I worried it was a mirage at first. Is that not... right? Mirages appear in hot places, yes? That is what Dino warned me about..."

A laugh breaks out of my mouth. "I mean... _yeah_ , but it's gonna take more than a few hard minutes to see one, Raptin. It's not even that hot yet." And his lip curls at that because he certainly thinks it is that hot. Man, those diga- _dinorans_. "You're still pretty hydrated, too." With that I launch against him, grab his arm, and pinch it hard. "See?"

He swipes at me with his other arm and I diga-duck, giggling madly. "Jkonna, do not even think of—" but I diga-dart off in front of him and hide by Dino before he finishes. While I busy myself tightening my hold on my best friend, I look out behind him and stick my tongue back out at Raptin. I can feel strands of my red hair lifting from that slight wind, so I try to push them back diga-down before another mess happens.

Dino sighs softly, elbowing me. "Dude, you can't screw with Raptin all the time. It makes him hate you." He's giggling behind it, though, that freaking hypocrite. "Heeey! Don't get that face, it's very much true! I _know_ this stuff!" And now he's laughing even harder.

We're still quiet when we diga-do it, but we make little jabs at each other, little laughs, little things. I probably try to use Rosie against him three times and I should feel more guilt than I diga-do about it, but anyways. Raptin eventually makes his way back toward us—careful not to get too close, especially to me—like some startled nasaur or something. His soft yellow gaze draws along the diga-dunes, heating and brightening with the fall of the moon and the rise of the sun, the sky making quick work of all the diga-dark edges in it.

Climbing the hulking white stone stairs turns out not to be so bad. At the top of them lies this funny pavilion thing full of more bricks and even, like, a fountain, and a few building facilities sprinkled about the area. A sign lets us know where we just came from, and I go a little faster up the stairs so I get to read it aloud: "Diga-Dusty... diga-Dunes. Ulhhh, they obviously diga-didn't consider if a digadig would end up reading it. That's diga-disgusting, that there."

Dino gets up, looks at it, and rolls his eyes. Raptin diga-doesn't really have much to say about any of it, but he's particular like that, so.

"Hmmm." My best friend looks up at the brick area. With the sun rising, little metal pieces of buildings and the glass windows catch alight. "We should... probably ask someone if they know Dina round here? Or maybe we should ask about that—that Joe guy, the one Lemo brought up. Remember that? Said something about the area."

I remember him. I think... I think I might've seen someone like him here last time. "Oh yeah, Joe... Wildwest. Pff, Joe Wildwest. What a... What a nice name." It's pretty stylish, if I diga-do say so myself.

Shaking his head, sending his fluffy black hair every which way, Dino giggles. "Well, he's not Bea Ginner, so it's a little hard to compare. I mean, Jkonna, _Bea_. Like... _Bea_ , though."

"Heheh..." I smile a bit at the ground. "Yeah, sure... Can't forget diga-Doug diga-Diggins and Nick Nack. Oh! And how about the _Rich_ mond family?"

While I'm busy laughing at myself and all our friends, a scaly black hand gently intercepts my forehead. I look up and feel my cheeks heat, and I sort of lose my nerve. "And Jkkie and Din-Din too, huh. Heh. Oh, and Rapty. Whole gang."

I can't fight this stupid smile off my face. "Yeah... Whole gang." It sounds kinda funny to say it that way, but it's... it's a nice funny.

We're about to diga-decide, then, which building we go into, when the one diga-directly to our right casually pops its diga-door open. That pretty much diga-decides for us, and we all go on in. It's cooler in the room—air conditioning, white walls, plush carpet—and there's... well, there's a lot of musty browned artifacts chilling around inside too. Some weird tablets sit off in the back center of the chamber, and they have a lot of open space which suggests that they're super important or something. A couple murals stacked around the walls. Bones from who knows where. An—Wait. Wait. The murals.

I tug on Dino's arm and point. He glances over. Sort of gasps.

One of those murals happens to hold a couple of guys we know very well in it. Icy white, fire red. A sauropod and a theropod—one on four stout legs and the other with two, his other two swinging in the air—and they're just diga-duking it out for eternity on that slab of rock there.

"Man," he mumbles, "how long have those guys been alive..."

When the diga-door jerks shut, we all flinch back. An older, portly man steps out from the opening and diga-doffs his head to us. His skin is mostly pale but for splotches of sunburns on his cheeks and hands, but otherwise he's well put together, looking all studious and stuff with those glasses and his funny tweed coat and his little hat.

"Hello there, wot wot!" he calls, like we're old friends. "I saw the lot of you standing out of doors and denoted that you all had the look of foreigners to you, so it would be best to get you out of the pavilion, especially with the heat of day kicking in, yes?" There's... something else in his honest, brown eyes, though. Sure, he's a nice older man, but he's eying Dino and Raptin funny, the scaled bodies—the orange on my best friend, the facial structure. "My name is Nigel Scatterly.

And with that out of the way he goes, "Would any of you happen to know"—eyes ferociously poking at us—"a girl of... ah, similar structure to you blokes by then name of Di—"

"—na?" Dino picks up quickly. "Um... yeah! That's... She's my sister!" His eyes are widening by the second. "We're looking for her! She's... She's been missing for a really long time and I really... I need to find her before something bad happens! I... S-See, there's this _ancient_ and she's really not _okay_ and we need to _save_ her..."

I glance over at Raptin and... it's funny. The rigid structure, the relentless stare... He's out of his mind. Not a word falls from his lips and I'm standing all the way across from him and still I get the feeling that he must be as worked up as Dino is about this. I mean, I'm happy and all too, but... this is someone they knew a long time ago, someone they miss. Family.

And that's... good for them. Really... good for them.

The Nigel guy gets pretty worked up too. "Oh, dear! I'm afraid you're a bit late, you poor things! Ah, how do I... How would I go about..." His eyes flicker over and in his glasses reflect a couple of those weird slab things. "Ah! Of course! My dear lads and lassie, over _here_ I may assist in the explanation of what has befallen our poor Caliosteo Islands. Yes, here!" And for a sort of chubby guy... he moves fast. No, just in general he moves fast. My gosh. "To the Calio Slablets!"

Dino's fast to go after him. Suddenly nervous, I scoot back, find a nice little bench in an alcove, and sit myself diga-down on it. It just... It feels weird being around all that nervous excitement... it's like their feelings are gonna swallow me or something. D-Diga-Don't get me wrong: I'm happy for them. I just... it's this weight on me, the hushed voices, the stone tablets, the frantic whispered name, diga- _Dina_...

Also those Calio whatever Slablets look diga-dubious at best. Though they're not exactly all that off from a mural, and those murals aren't exactly all that off from the truth... well. Almost the exact truth, if I'm honest... There's just worn smudges here and there and... ugh, thinking about it diga-doesn't help. Now my insides are all knotted. I just... ahhh... I'm happy for them, seriously...

As our new friend Nigel animatedly begins his tale, I start to listen, but only a little bit, sort of half paying attention. He has to use one name that comes from his precious Slablet, then rub it out with his words and correct it with others— _Zongazonga—no, an old and extremely powerful ancient—_ and something about his diga-daughter, some crazy that got killed trying to stop him. Nothing I particularly wanna get into. It's... making me uncomfortable. It just...

I diga-don't feel like I belong, I guess. Like we have Dino, and we have Raptin, and they've known each other since forever and they're both diga-dinaurians looking for their diga-Dina. And then I'm this wacked-up digadig, who's just sort of _also_ there, and... it's weird. I'm weird. I... aah, I diga-don't know.

At some point in this whole conversation, Raptin's diga-disappeared from my best friend's side to loitering more by me, a little twitchy, mostly just quiet. Diga-Dark eyes stare out into the carpet with a hectic intensity. He's being weird and I'm not gonna mess with him so I start pulling back my hair from around my poor hot neck, combing out the tangles with swift, brown fingers. Where it got wet and diga-dried, all crusty and thick, I get messy with my combing. Diga-Don't really care though. Once I'm satisfied enough—which takes shorter than it should—I part it into three fiery waves and attempt to tug it into some sort of braid, keep it out of my face.

When I look up from my fussing, once or twice, I find a certain diga-dinaurian staring back at me. But his eyes jump back if I try to get his attention. They probably make their way back when I'm not looking anymore. Eventually I try again and I murmur, head at the ground, "So how's the—"

"Jkonna." _Jihahnah_. He molds it into something sharp, a weapon. "There is no need to speak to me if all you have to say are ridicules." Oh... _oh_... "It is evident enough that we are not compatible in... in any form. We came for the same reason, but that does not mean we must indulge one another. You hold a right to say silent, as do I. And... it may be preferable if you... adhered to it more often."

Oh, um... I... I-I can't say I diga-didn't see this coming but that diga-doesn't make it any easier to listen to... gahh... "Y-Yeah, maybe." I swallow, eyes twitchy. It's hard to... pull away from that. His curt tone's still spinning around in my head. It's all I can hear. Words come out of my mouth but they retain his voice, s-somehow. It... It diga-doesn't remind me of, um, of me. "You might be... right." My eyes stay at the ground. My braiding gets frantic.

I mean, what can I say? He's right. I'm not nice to him. I'm not really nice to anyone, for that matter. It's a tendency I slip into, the brash voice, the punches, the teases, the insults. And Raptin's... not someone who's gonna let it slide. Not... forever, at least.

Heh. This is one of those times where you're supposed to... apologize, huh. I um... I diga-don't really apologize often. Makes me... uncomfortable. Really. I... unnh... My eyes diga-dart over to him but he's not even looking anywhere near me at this point.

We-Well that's... That's fine. My eyes keep going, and going, and—pause... when they reach Dino. He's started to slump over himself, hands twitching in and out of fists.

Well... that's no good.

I tear off, leaving my unfinished braid to tatter out. Not until I'm right by him can I stop and I take his hand and squeeze and he squeezes back and I just stare up at him, his blotchy orange face, small tears in his eyes, and he glances back over to me with this softness that curdles diga-deep in my heart. Nigel's stopped talking at this point. He's looking here and there around Dino, his face set and... morose.

So much as I'd like to ask him what happened, he really diga-doesn't seem like he's in the mood, more that maybe we should never speak about whatever happened here ever again.

He tells me anyways. Dino's a... a _good_ person like that. "My sister's... My sister's already lost her mind to the ancient. Apparently it happened a... couple months or so ago. So, uh. So the Professor here thinks she's... a, um... a..." He can't really say it. I shake my head gently, like, if he diga-doesn't want to, he diga-doesn't have to, but because he's Dino, and Dino's a good person like that, he tells me anyways.

"They think it's already over. If not by now then... soon. There's ancients everywhere and people had to evacuate and there's no way she's... no _way_ she's..." alive..?

H-Holy... _turd_.

I step from Dino without releasing his hand. Holding it tightly, tighter than I was before. I can't see my face but I feel it going cold, expressionless, stone. It takes hardly seconds to step in front of Nigel, who's hardly my height. Whatever he sees in my face can't be pretty because his lip sort of quivers.

It takes hardly seconds to send him reeling, to launch my fist into his shoulder and tilt him off balance and another one to send him to the ground and another and another and ano—ano—anoothhhh—hhhh—

Someone else's hand is blocking mine. I turn up and... "Raptin, let me go."

His eyes are hard. "Jkonna, this is no way to—"

"I said, let me go!" I thrust my arm back but his grip is tight. A lot tighter than mine ever was. Raptin's... strong. "Let me go! Let me _go_ , Raptin!" And I jerk back again but he sees it miles away and I diga-don't even move. There's a sour look on my face and I feel it curdling fast. "YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THAT TO PEOPLE, YOU CAN'T JUST SAY, OH, YEAH, BY THE WAY, SHE'S PROBABLY DIGA-DEAD BY NOW!"

"Jkonna, I—"

"THAT'S NOT... THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS! THAT'S NOT OKAY, DIGADIG! THAT'S NOT OKAY AT ALL, THAT'S—"

"JKONNA.

My voice diga-dies in my throat. "Jkonna." I lower my head. "Jkonna, giving into your feelings and hurting someone else is not a liable answer. You only make a greater mess." I feel myself shaking. "Do you understand? You only make a greater mess. Out of yourself, out of other people. You only make a greater mess."

Hair covers my face, and I leave it that way. Dino's fingers stay around mine, and when he squeezes I squeeze back.

Footsteps. Careful motions, careful lifting. Stand.

"Ahh, blokes, chums, worry not! The girl didn't hit me all that hard, only enough to push this teapot over!" And like that, he brushes himself off like it's nothing. Like I—Like I diga-did nothing. Maybe it's just me but I think I catch the way he's gentle with his shoulder now, the one I smacked first. There must be a bruise blooming underneath his clothes. A bruise that I... that I made. H-Heh.

Dino's still shaken and I'm obviously a wreck, so Raptin has to fill in for us. He steps in front, bowing, stuttering, lifting, nervous. "My apologies for what has... ha-happened here. Jkonna is... very sorry for what she did." He takes a very well-maneuvered second to swing his arm back and hit my shoulder. Not all that hard—he's holding back, I can tell. Enough to get me to look up, though. "While, um... while we..." He swallows. His cheeks are purple again. "While we were in the area we were hoping to find a Joe Wildwest. He is... He is someone we should look for, a friend told us. Would you happen to know him?"

"Why, of course I know Joe! Who doesn't, in Caliosteo? Wot wot!" Nigel's voice is so warm and happy that it sounds like I really diga-didn't hurt him. He- _Heh_. "He lives on the middle island of the four—the one with the great tower house perched upon it so delicately. If you are in a search for Dina and her, ah, _latest_ whereabouts, there would be a marvelous place to ask around. Joe would know. He and Dina were rather close." I flinch at that whole _were close_ but I sort of look at Raptin and I manage to stop myself from friggin _strangling_ Nigel.

Raptin glances off. "Th-Thank you." He's never spoken to strangers on this journey before, has he. That's... the first time he went out of his way. His fingers are twitchy, like he really needs to hold something, but otherwise he diga-did... diga-did _really_ well. That was... huh, that was something.

I've never really seen much of him outside of what Dino and I called him... H-He's... He's pretty strong. Never even thought of that, but... wow. For some reason, we're going out the diga-door and Raptin's still trying to fill in for his silent friends and I can't stop thinking about the way he diga-did that, his hand heavy on my wrist, that was so, that was _so_...

Why diga-didn't I kick him? Of course I diga-didn't—and still have yet to—release Dino's hand. His eyes are so... blurred, and gray, and... I want to be there for him. But I could've kicked Raptin. Could've pulled my arm closer to myself and bitten him, something. But I diga-didn't try any of that and for the life of me I can't... I can't stop thinking about it.

Wait. Wait, right... I shake my head, sending little red strands out of my face. That's not what's important right now. "Hey, Dino... we diga-don't know if she's hurt or—or anything. That guy obviously diga-doesn't know about you and your _two_ ancients, not even _one_ ancient... and, uh, diga, ummmm..." Biting at my lip, I swing our joined hands as we saunter on. "He's probably no idea what the big diga-deal of a diga-dinaurian is or—or whatever. Diga-Doesn't know about your diga-dad, about you, about diga-Dina... so um, so diga-don't... let it get to you. Be-Besides! We already... We already said it was a possibility, that she wasn't okay, but we just... we just diga-don't know right now."

And he diga-does give me a diga-decent nod. Not one he puts his whole heart into but it's something, it's a start. Watching his tilted head and diga-dark gaze... exhausts me; when I squeeze his hand he still squeezes back.

Raptin's nearby too. "Jkonna." I jolt to a stop. "Do be careful not to run into that building there, yes?" And then I look up and holy turd I probably should pay attention to my surroundings before I go through a window. Chuckling weakly, I pull back from the glass and pull Dino with me.

"Well, uh... Where are we supposed to go then? The middle island. Diga-Do we just... leave where we came? Buh?"

His stern expression—I'm not making this up, am I—I swear it—it like—it _falters_ for a second there. "No, of course not. See?" He raises a hand—midnight blue—and points out a pillar, far out in the diga-distance. "That is the building on the middle island there."

"Oh," I mumble. Because looking at him is suddenly embarrassing, I focus on my tunic and tug a little at the stitches coming out. Ugh, this thing is gross... I'm gonna need a new one...

And then I sort of jolt again when I remember. "Wa-Wait! You said you weren't gonna talk to me anymore." I wince when it comes out. Looking back on it, I sound like a whiny toddler. Eeew.

A bit of a snide grin twitches on his lip. That has to be the biggest expression I've ever seen on his face... and that's so... tiny. "I said it would be more liable not to speak with you if all you contain are the constant harassments and jibes that I had only seen from you since."

"That. Uh." He's speaking in circles around me. "You... diga-don't hate me... after I beat up an old man? Wouldn't that make you hate me more?" I feel my lip sliding into a smirk, but he must see it with the way my eyes flutter and how I hold myself that I'm smirking at myself more than anyone else.

"Perhaps...so." A thoughtful look colors him. His yellow eyes, usually so sharp, have become a little foggy. "Yes, that would appear to make more sense. But it... it is obvious why you attacked him. And I find that something I could, ah... relate to, if I would." The eyes halt on some faraway place that no one else sees but him. "You _do_ recall... Guhnash, yes?"

Oh. _Oh._ Holy _turd_ that's right. "I-I forgot all about that, whoa... And—And that's right... Diga-Duna's your..." I cut myself off, lip screwing up. "That's... well... I haven't really thought about it in awhile I guess... digadig." Well now I feel stupid. "Hey! Um... I..." Getting stupider by the second. "I lost... _my_ sister, too. But it was... a long time ago."

He's gotta see all the nerves jumping off of me but that diga-doesn't shut him off like I figured it would. I glance back up at him, all nervous—man, I hardly go up past his chest, he's... _tall—_ and if anything the guy's hooked. That's... That's so weird, pff... "You... did? You never mentioned having a sister."

"Well... I diga-don't like thinking about it much, heh..." I usually diga-don't think about very serious things, if I can help it. I... get all upset and... hurt people and stuff—li-like he was saying—when I diga-do. H-Haha. "My... parents diga-died from—from ancients. When I was young. And... that's where it, where the... the whole..." I can't get myself to say it so I think I'll just pretend he knows what I mean and move on. Diga-Deep beath. "Anyways, I had a younger sister and... she wasn't old enough to understand what was going on, so our grandfather—the chieftain of our tribe—he... diga-decided he had no idea what to do with me and..." I flinch. "Well... banished me. It was... yeah, it was..."

"My... sincere apologies." His eyes are so... wide.

"Hey, it... it happened a long time ago. I-It's fine. I was able to sort of get recognized by them again later after some junk went diga-down with my sister so it's... it's fine. She... She just diga-doesn't remember me anymore."

His face has gone quiet. Lips pursed, like... there's something else he wants to say to that. Eventually he just shakes his head, his soft, spiny, cerulean hair springing. "I never knew."

"No, it's... s-seriously, it's just turd I diga-don't like talking about much..." I lose my focus on him. "Hah, probably makes me look like I can't take anything seriously when I completely shrug it off though. Huh, diga..." My eyes crawl over on the brick ground. Sun's rising on our backs. My shadow's starting to stagger off of me in a hazy puddle around my bare feet. Oh, that's... an unpleasant amount of blisters. There we—There we go—How about, instead of thinking about Raptin, I focus on counting the blisters on my feet. Yeah, that's—

A hand intercepts my free one and my heart lurches in my chest. Oh, no—oh _no—_ I glance up and he's bending diga-down some to fill out that monstrous height gap and he's _literally right there_ and my heart is diga- _dying_ and _why_ is he _right there_ and his breath is warm on my ear. "Thank you for telling me."

Yeah—Um— _Ahhhh—_

I'm suddenly very, very interested in the folds of my sleeve and all of my attention is casually shoved in that diga-direction. He probably sees the stupid gigantic blush on my face and this is just _great_ , no no no it's awful, oh my _gosh_ , _help_ me.

What saves me is the sudden realization that if I have a free hand then I must also have a _not_ free one and we both happen to glance on poor, half-slouched Dino at the same time. Alright, has he literally been spaced out through this _entire_ conversation? It was... kind of long. Pretty long. Oh my _gosh_. _Oh my gosh._ Dino, you... Oh, Dino. What's happening to me.

This moment is perfect for not rudely sneaking out of Raptin's grip and gently pulling my arms around my best friend. "Hey, Dino... Diinoooo..." My cheeks puff. "It's okay. Okay? It's okay, digadig. You're upset and that's okay, but... but we're _so, so_ close. You can diga-do this. Come on."

He starts to rouse again, a little more, if but slightly. That's good enough for me. He diga-doesn't have to have a whole change of face or anything. I think I'm gonna keep very strongly reacting to the soft voice I used because I diga-didn't even know I had a voice that stop and what is Raptin diga- _doing_ to me, I'm like, I'm melting on the spot, holy turd. I wish Foster was here so I could yell at him. That always makes me feel better.

But it's not even—it's not even like I diga-don't feel good. It's... ahhh... I nervously clench at my tunic and straighten it out some.

Raptin naturally fills out the spot in front of us and takes us diga-down the huge, white steps. My attention goes mostly to Dino and keeping him from tripping in his half diga-decomposed state and partially to the tall diga-dinaurian ahead. There's something about his gait that's changed... I think some of the stiffness so constricting to him has... diga-drifted away.

Okay maybe I'm not the only one with all this angsty nervous energy chilling out in my veins. It's still weird and awkward, though... ahh...

I release a big breath, shaking my head, smiling like the idiot I am, and I continue leading my best friend through the sand. It stops sticking to my feet, thank goodness... that was—that was annoying. Can't say much about his scales, though. He's getting pretty much caked in particles, sticking in between the cracks, and he diga-doesn't even care, so it's only about as messy as ever.

With the rise of the sun, our ensemble hurries to escape the heat that comes with it. Hot air shoves off into our way and sends my hair sprawling; I almost trip on it a few times. M-Maybe I should cut it. But just so it's not on the ground. Y-Yeah. And then it's back to shouldering Dino and helping him remember how to walk again and storming, storming, storming through the blustery diga-depths of freaking diga-Dusty diga-Dunes.

Reaching the other end of the island sucks what energy I had left out of me. It's all I can diga-do not to—not to _curl up_ in a _ball_ or something and... and suck in mad breaths and try to shake out all the sand. Raptin glances into the water and sort of points at Dino, like, _diga-Droplet?_ And he's right, but... but diga-Droplet must be exhausted and she's already diga-done so much and at this point, is it still a race against time?

I can... I can... right?

 _Don't give me that look. You naughty guilt-tripping girl._ The medal wriggles into my hand out of my pocket even so.

 _Thanks, Foster._ Stupid smile on my face. I clench his aquamarine diga-disc and toss him out into the waves, where he pops out and sends sparkling water crashing all around him. Raptin helps me lift poor Dino onto the futabi first, toward the front, where the neck is, and then I'm halfway onto the spot right behind him when I suddenly remember that that means Raptin will be behind me and will probably have to put his arms around me or something to hold on and that is making me _really_ nervous like _so_ nervous that I'm not sure I can handle it.

Quiet shock seeps into me as I scoot on top of Foster's finned back. _So. How's it feel, mmh?_

 _ACTUALLY DIGA-DIE._

Soft chortles rumble off of him. I let my hair fall in front of my eyes so I diga-don't have to _look_ at him, that... ughhh. With a haughty growl, I wrap my arms tight around my best friend and rest my head on his shoulder. Where it's _safe_ , you _turd_ of a vivosaur. I'd punch him but then I remember _again_ what Raptin told me and I bite back my pride and I think about biting Foster but that's the same thing as punching and... ugh, this is confusing.

I never figure out when Raptin gets on because he completely neglects from touching any part of me whatsoever. There's a slight change of weight somewhere, but not enough to notice, so that when Foster takes off I have to look back with a pang in my chest and oh, he's not on the sand still, he's... right behin—

My head swivels back in front of me before he can figure out how intently I was looking at him. Oh, no, I've turned into an embarrassment...

Suddenly conscious of my long, loose hair, I release Dino enough to tuck it all over one shoulder, one thick flowing wave of red. If I'm careful with how I maneuver this, I can work on returning the braid to my hair and actually securing it this time...

Foster's relatively slow in comparison to the insane speedy bulk that is diga-Droplet the krona, though he has a considerable gait as well. It diga-doesn't take all that long in the ride to finish off the braid and let it tug around some, too thick to diga-do much, and it's not seconds after I finish that my futabi suddenly slams over a wave and with a shriek I latch back onto Dino.

It's the careful timing that proves he's diga-doing this on purpose. Which means he's—

 _FOSTER. NO._

We slam over another and he yells over the foam, _WHAT WAS THAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU, THE WATER'S IN MY EARS._

My face goes stark red as I consider the possibility he's trying to create, that _stupid freaking—_ ugggghh... In the end I just sort of hide my head in Dino's back a little more because Dino's safe and Dino's not gonna screw me over and he's still a little unnervingly quiet but he's not gonna be a jerk about what's going on over here.

Eventually, Foster's run enough waves that even I'm losing my grip, and my legs are clenched tight around him and my arms are shaky on their hold of Dino. He's sturdy as ever, Dino. Course he is. Whatever. I feel Raptin hiss as another turbulent course tries to rip him off of the futabi and he manages enough nerve to ask, _Foster, yes? Could you be more careful as to no—_

One more rapid and a hand cups my shoulder and I bite through my lip. Of course he needs the stability of _course_ it was gonna catch up to him eventually of _course_ I saw this coming but I—but I... M-Man, his hand's... so big, and... slender, and it's larger and more graceful than Dino could ever hope for and I... ahhh, stupid breath, stop catching in my throat...

Yeah, I should've made Dino pull his krona out one last time. My stomach's pinched so hard it feels like it's going to implode and then I'll collapse with it.

Apparently he's satisfied with one hand on my shoulder, or maybe it's all the support Raptin needs, but all I know is once we reach the shores of the weird tiny rocky island in the middle of the three, that's as far as he ever needs to go. When the scaled fingers peel off I lose my breath and diga-decide that I shouldn't hold it like that but I diga-don't even remember holding it but—gaaaah, this is all Foster's fault anyways. I hate him.

Well. If nothing else, when I reach out for Dino's hand, he shrugs it off and gets up on his own. A diga-deep breath, more like a sigh, in, out, and he glances up at the great penthouse chilling on top of all these slick rocks. With a croak, his voice starts up again: "I... ahh, sorry. I lost—lost hope for a second there. A-Again. But you're all right—you're all—I mean..." Eyes at the ground. "I mean, I already knew the risks and... we've come too far to... to stop now." He swallows.

"I-I'm ready. If you guys are."

A little grin twitches up on my lip. "Yeah, I'm... Me too, diga." Me too. And Raptin, eyes soft, gives a small nod, and there it is, and there we go. I pull Foster's medal out of the waves and silently yell at him for a good few seconds before running off after the others. Not that he listens.

We all line up at the diga-door. It's a pretty diga-drab brown. Everyone kind of elbows each other until Dino lets out a breath and knocks first. Nobody answers so he tries again. And nobody answers again so... he shrugs and picks at the knob and starts when it twists right open.

Somebody diga-doesn't seem to care if random strangers pop up to meet him. Well.

Indoors lies a nice wooden chamber holding some plush rugs and a fireplace off in one corner. Books line most of the walls, as diga-do shelves littered with... toys. Children toys—well-used, judging by the worn edges and loose strings. Little diga-dolls and vivosaur figures, a couple blocks. Huh. I mean, you diga-do you, but... that's interesting.

There's a couple diga-doors leading off to the back, but Dino peeps into one and mutters, "An empty kitchen." So then there's nothing we can diga-do to go and ignore the shiny glass elevator just sort of chilling in the wall there.

I suck in a breath. "So?" It's quiet. "Any, uh, objections?" Nope. They're... a little nervous, though I can't blame them. My fingers mess over the little clumsy stitches and holes in my tunic again. Really... need a new one, after all this. Wow, I'm terrible at taking care of things...

So we all line up again and someone musses over the fob, triggers open the diga-door, and we all settle in. Raptin's fingers slip over the fob and switch it up and... there we go.

It's about as awkward as it can get, breathing the same air and standing all squished together in that shiny elevator. When it opens, I sigh softly, rubbing at an eye.

Great windows open out on all sides. The huge, beige, oval area's well lived in, another carpet chilling on the floor here, a table and some chairs pushed off to a side. There's a man sitting in one of them, just staring out the window, just sort of sitting there as the sun rises to the left of us.

He turns at the sound of the elevator clicking off. An orange mass of curls lies beneath his hat, one of those huge western ones: it's got horns on it too, and a hint of a face. A long, diga-dark coat spills out over his figure, and it shifts with his every move. Massive brown boots, strings tied diga-down four or five rows over it, click to the ground as he lifts up and takes us in.

Oh. He's a lot shorter than what I was expecting. I mean—I mean he's still pretty tall, but even Dino's got, like, a solid inch on him, so Raptin's even more so.

Tired—but warm—but soft—auburn eyes take in our little trio. A small smile cracks at the edges of his rugged face. "Hullo, pards. Name's Joe, but you prolly know that if you came all the way here fer me, eh?" There's something sorrowful about him... a cloud in his head, diga-drooping over him. "Now who're y'all... and what brings y'here?"

His eyes linger on Dino, and there's a hint of recognition in there, kinda like with Nigel, though it's not much to go all that off of. And even while there's a heaviness, this worry in his face, my best friend takes the lead again. "I-It's nice to, um, to meet you. I'm... looking for someone really important to me—well." He glances back at us: Raptin, then me. "To us. She... She looks kinda like me—ha-hah, actually, we're... siblings. And it... it took us a long time to get here, and it took me an even longer time to... to remember her, but... but we're here now." A sense of certainty overcomes him. "Have... Have you ever heard of a girl named, um... Dina? She might not really have the scales or anythi—"

"Oh, oh, yer..." That little spark, the one Joe let fizzle, returns with a roar. "Oh! Yer... Ya know her? Ya really do? She... After all these years, she really did have a family?"

"Um! Yeah?!" A blush swoons over Dino's face.

"Wow, that's... Wow! Ya..." Pointing a little frantically at Dino's face. "Ya got scales! Like she does, er, now! She... didn't have 'em for awhile. Not until... recent, actually. And then the..." Joe's face goes quiet again. "The ancient. Haven't seen her since. She's gone missing... since the ancient.

Diga-Doesn't let that stop him, though. "Yer her brother. Dina's... brother." Said brother nods rapidly. "Well... hrrrm, I've been watchin' over the islands, what with the outbreak of ancients, but... don't think I can just let y'all go on yer own, now. It's dangerous, where she is now. We had to evacuate and—and everythin'. But, but... ahh, I gotta take y'all. There ain't a faster way than my Mith. 'F only I hadn't let _him_ bother my lantern..."

Wait—lantern— _Wait_... "M-Myth?" I sputter, "what myt—"

"Naw, naw." Shaking his head, curls bouncing. "Mith, with an ai sound." Oh. "She's my ptera. A strong one, she. Could carry the four of us and a few more, give er take. That is, if she's alright with that." Shuffling into one of his greatcoat pockets, he pulls out a lime green medal and rubs a thumb over the yellow imprint on it. With a small nod, he turn over to one of the windows and gently coaxes the hatch open, pulling the glass up, up and out of the way.

A hand secured on his hat and Joe turns back to us. His auburn eyes gleam. "C'mon, y'all! We're losin' time! Can't waste what I'm givin' from ancient-huntin' to helpin' y'all find Dina!"

"Wait." Dino pauses. "Wait um... How do you know her? What... makes her so, um, so important over here that you're gonna—"

"Well I raised her!" Oh, _well_. Whoa. That came outta nowhere. "From a little tyke. Y'saw the shelves? Yeah, those were hers. Long time ago." Oh, the _toys_ were... "She was round back when the ancient of all ancients possessed me! Hoo! That was a bad time, that! She had to help us defeat 'im, Zongy! Now, c'mon, we're losin' daylight!"

We share one last glance, but that's honestly good enough for me, and it turns out that's good enough for Dino, too, so while I can tell Raptin's sorta diga-dubious, he's also outnumbered, so we all pile up around the window. Joe releases his diga-disc into the open air and out pops this banana yellow bird, this massive thing, easily a greater wingspan than the whole penthouse this guy freaking lives in. And it's not like we have any better idea, so all four of us make our way on top of the ptera, Dino behind Joe, I behind Dino, and— _gah_.

The winds are blustery enough and Mith is fast enough that I end up turning to Raptin myself and muttering, face not red a-at _all_ , "I-I diga-d-don't bite, you can... you can..." And then I turn back around without finishing cuz there goes my nerve.

It diga-doesn't take very long for him to envelop me. I try not to think too hard about those l-large, slender hands but we all know I diga-do and I try not to think too much about how... warm he is and how he smells kinda nice but not in a weird way, like, just a casual, natural way and I also try not to think too hard about how much I've started to appreciate his strength a-and admire how well he controls it and and and I think I might actually diga-die.

And that's all that's going through my head the entire time we fly.

 **XD oh my gosh... I'm surprised as anyone else is that Raptkonna is suddenly becoming more and more of a reality. Like at first, back at the beginning of the series, in The Lost Fossil Fighter, I did NOT even CONSIDER it, not AT ALL! I'll be honest, I never even thought of it, anywhere! I never thought of Jkonna having feelings for anyone, let alone Raptin! And the same for Raptin!**

 **And then... in this chapter, all of a sudden Raptin finally found the courage to tell Jkonna himself that she was a rude snot and she had to stop doing that... and then just paragraphs later stood up again, because well it was finally obvious to him that Dino's not gonna do anything about it but... he can!**

 **Isn't that crazy? XD Raptin's the first person who's ever been able to calm her down! And, well, we haven't seen much out of Raptin but the ridicule he's been put into, poor guy... and then THIS!**

 **Man I've completely caught myself off guard with this but I also am starting to love it a little too much so xD what can I say, hahaha**


	36. Rt: Power Outage

**There is this pain inside of me as I start this chapter because as much as I love Rupert and as far as I've come to get to this part of the story and as much as I know that there isn't any more room for it and it doesn't even really need more room, I want to write more about Raptin and Jkonna anyways... ahhh -sigh-**

 **Rupert: but... you are not writing more of—**

 **Me: yeah but I want to like I _want_ to**

 **Rupert: ...but you will not**

 **Me: yeah**

 **Rupert:**

 **Mier: well how about you take a break from them and write more about me, that's always a solution**

 **Me: _almost_ always a solution**

 **Mier: well that's better than I was expecting**

 **Me: then again do you even show up in this chapter**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 36: Power Outage

 _Rupert_

With what part of me so dumbfounded that I manage to swallow this entire ordeal whole, I glance over at my cousin and rasp to her, voice hardly lacing my words, "W-Well, what should we—"

"Because I know," she snaps, her harsh whisper as soft as mine. Ah. My eyes wander from ancient to ancient to the man in the midst of them. Even if I ever did think of a suitable question for Dinu, my mouth has gone dry, so it would stay locked up inside of me for some time anyways. I gently wrest a sleeve back from my hand, my chapped and ruddy hand, and I search in one of my pants pockets for a handful of medals, any medals.

The lanky creature up ahead notes this and watches me with a new coat of interest. I step back. He lurches forward and I duck back again, leafing out two, three, four cold discs and clenching them in my hand. I sift through the other pocket and manage three and, well, seven is better than what we had going for us.

A voice suddenly sparks from somewhere within me. _Well we still can't fight that load of ancients. I'm not sure what you're looking up toward._ Gruff, unforgiving, his little list of critiques.

 _It is nice to hear you again, Gyntis._ He huffs and turns in his medal, and I cannot tell whether he wants me to see him as a big deal or nothing of the sort. But it is a little nice. If nothing else.

 _We don't have all day, Rupert,_ he mutters, _might as well get it over with now._

Dina sidles up near me. Her eye catches the other medals, the one in my left hand, and she points gingerly at the glossy figures embossed upon them. While I cannot make out any features upon her face, I can still imagine: big, bright eyes, nodding a little furiously and whispering the name of her so dear dimetro, and of course the others as well.

But Torn is... not in the group there. In fact, he has remained as curiously quiet as he was earlier. I do wonder if more than the ancients have kept him at bay. The way Dina stiffens when she notices this too—there is Nyra, there is Aladee, and there is Trikko, but no Torn, or Reyna, for that matter—suggests, almost, an air of guilt. If... only I could ask her what transpired between them.

 _Ohhh, Rupert... is that—?_

I cannot ward off a small grin. _Yes. It is._ Nyra lets out a great caw of joy and Dina grows nervous and twitchy again at the sound of her nycto ace. Like she wants to see her, desperately so, wants to say her name in turn... oh, Dina. So close you are and yet so far from... where you were.

Pippy stirs, then. _Dina! It is very... um, very greatly n-nice to meet you! Rupert told us very... very..._ very _many good things of you! A whoooooooole lot, lassie, so very much!_

A hand presses by my face. This bothersome tinge of blush... _Pippy, you have no need to—_

"Oh, what a sorry picture. Won't even bother to say hello, for old time's sake? I'm certain I raised you better than such, Son." For a moment all I feel is my heart beating, no, slamming into my chest, my nerves on fire. His voice, his ugly, metallic, apathetic voice picks at small imperfections upon me: the scar on my jawline, the marks about my neck, the tangled hair, the homespun and somewhat lumpy sweater, the _broken foot_. His eye travels and silently intakes all of these things; his head tips and takes in, almost hungrily, what pieces of me that have chipped and cracked since he last saw of me.

A grin twitches up the side of his lip. "Look at you." My gaze lies to the snowy ground, to the footprints I left behind, only ever far enough to reach Dinu, who stands not feet away. "Look at what you've _done_ to yourself, you _poor_ thing." I screw my eyes shut. Try to breathe. Softly, quietly. His voice is in my bloodstream and I feel what little warmth I'd managed sapping away. "Made yourself into a dis _grace_ , have you?"

The cold, hard _clomps_ of his pacing in his boots. Those thick-soled books, stitched in silver. Hard enough to smart if he kicked you in them. A bruise that wouldn't leave for days, continuing to throb relentlessly sometimes for weeks if he planted it well enough, if he doubled up on it enough.

"What a shame, what a shame." Soft tittering in his tone.

I would know. I would... I-I would know.

" _Ru_ pert, do _tell_ me your life hasn't been _all_ this bad since you left my side, _would_ you?

In that sly, simpering whisper, so silky, so soft, so _biased_.

His voice comes to a quick, timed halt before proceeding. To let me think of my _discourteous_ actions, to reconsider my faults and _beg_ of forgiveness. "Come now, my son. Do not let yourself lie wastrel to the elements of this world any longer. Surely you have learned by now that there is a reason I raised you how I did, that I only wished for the very _best_ of you." He crunches the word under his teeth. "Please _do_ understand, this little adventure of yours has surely revealed to you by now what an ugly, unseemly place this world of ours is.

"Now you must return to where you truly belong, Son, to where you always have been and always shall be again. Let us reunite."

He... Well.

He speaks to me like I'm one of the bloody _trophies_ I won in a tournament.

One of many pretty ornaments hanging on the shelves in his mansion.

I believe at this point it would be an insult not only to myself but to his blatant idiocy if I accepted this preposterous little offer.

And then I stop and... I wonder, quickly sifting through old memories: was it always this way? Did he always refer to me in such a tone? Did he always sound so... confused? Something about the way he hisses these words comes out very wrong on some base level...

Dinu glances over to me and I look up. She mutters, "You're not—"

"I know." Weak smile on my face, I nod. "I-I _know_ , Dinu."

"Don't get that way with me. You're the one who gave in that last time." A condescending lilt snatches at me but for some second I cannot remember what she is talking abou—Oh, _oh_... Oh, that is right... That is... very right. The last time we saw him—the both of us together—he commanded my obedience and I... and I played into his hand so easily. Because it... oh, it was so much _easier_ to pretend none of it had ever happened, that Dina was not real but a folly of my starved heart, my desperate imaginings... so much easier to lose my heart than to change myself.

 _Dina_... was the one who saved...

My eye wanders over to her side. She stares back at me, head tilted... Pff— _she_ does not remember it. A moment so crucial to me has completely bypassed her memory. Oh, _Dina_...

Well... My father lies in waiting. I may as well give him my answer. As I raise my head and gently search of him, both looking and avoiding at the same time, I drop the medals to the ground. They stay quiet, sifting among the piles of snow for small burrows to keep themselves in before any crucial moment strikes. Because it—it _will_ , though it has yet to. We feel the bombs setting in the air. So... thick, and heavy. Viscous, like a stew of... disgust.

In a fast moment, it all sparks so quickly: I force my gaze into his presence, the sunglasses, thick coat, the crude smile, and I strengthen my voice and I take a breath and I tell him: "No. Not again. Not any longer." No more shall... shall you control me. No more shall you conquer me.

The little spark ignites with a twist of his lip, a knife plunging into flesh. "What was that?" His hand slides the sunglasses off of his face and great, gouging gaps of a gaze stare back at me. "What did you say, Son?"

"I-I said _no_." My words curdle quickly. "I-I... _No_. No more. You cannot... You cannot... feed me your lies any more. I will not... l-let you." Those wretched pupils dilate, flicker, and bleed deep inside of me. Shadows stretching beneath his cheeks only begin to guess at the last time he slept. Long, jagged fingernails toil with a strand of his disheveled hair, white, like mine.

His grin is fake. He presses it and forces a step forward, snow crashing to his wake.

Clawed nails of hands go rushing toward me and he cries, spit gleaming from his lips, "I _knew_ it! I _knew_ you would _never_ leave my side, _Son_! I _knew_ you _cared_! You must know how _terribly_ I love you, _Son_! Ohhhhhhh, how you mussssst knowwww..." Even after he finishes and after he rushes and after he trips and falls and gets up and continues I still feel the words beating down on my skull. My stark face twists and I stare at Dinu and she must see me crumbling and she must feel some form of the... of the... I cannot even say it, it... crawls up my throat and disfigures what I say, I... I...

With a shrug, she mumbles, "You said no," her eyes glassy, her lips stretched thin. "You said... _no_." A flinch crosses over her body and her hand slaps over mine and she pulls and moments after a snarling mass crumples where I just stood.

Where, like seeds, the seven vivosaurs I planted spring. Pippy is quick to stand guard over the man and Tessa desires mere seconds to slam a foot over his arm. Nyra takes flight, her eyes flinching over the cloudy mass of ancients, some rushing, some falling, some standing perfectly still as if no action has occurred whatsoever, and perhaps to them this is all some funny game... some... _funny_ game...

Mistress, remaining in my pocket, titters softly. I clench her medal before starting again.

Seconds pass before Trikko butts his horned face into the first ancient that shreds by— _solid—_ and sends it spiraling off into the snowy earth. Aladee stands by him, as of yet ready though unresponsive. After ducking her head into the snow, Sunny mingles within it and scours the ground for any unsuspecting ancients and Gyntis trots beyond her in a bout of half-frenzied stomping.

To my side, Dinu carelessly tosses her three white-rimmed medals out into the open and latches her free hand upon Zoazoa after releasing me. The orange-haired girl screams and twists and jumps and tries to kick at my stubborn cousin without luck until she eventually tells the ancient, " _This_ is up we're up against, and it's _all_ your fault. Don't even _think_ of getting out of it." Her face tells a harsher story: stony and shadowed, lips tight and eyes narrowed. _We'll die if you do._

She almost appears happy to announce this. A grim smile has upturned her lips.

It is... too much for the ancient. "Let go!" Ripping back from her. "LET ME GO! LET ME GO, LET ME GO, LET ME GOOOOOOOOOOooooo!" Coughing is all that stops her, and when she swallows it she starts again, howling, weeping, shrieking.

Dinu has yet to bat an eye. "Uh _huh_." The grin drags up a little more, growing snide ."You can't simply—"

There is more, but whatever it is she says I miss. A paw slaps me forward and I tumble and fall and it is all too quickly, it all happens so fast. He already _broke_ free from my vivosaurs, Pippy's paw torn and wet and I glimpse my hand, now throbbing, and wince. Thick, rugged fingers, coated in little streaks of blood and all matters of scars, stuff themselves about my shoulders and hold me there. His breaths floats down about me in a cloud of rancid heat.

While he busies himself in containing me I call to Tessa. She steps over, she tilts her muddy gaze at my father, she raises a black foot, she waits, she looks again, she kicks. He crumbles over again, but it is seconds before he jumps back up again. With a cry, my pachy kicks again and falls on her side, frantically kicking, and with her distraction I slip back again.

Small punctures have gouged themselves into each of my shoulders, from when he was... I wince. _Pippy, are you alright?_ and with his nod I ask him to come forward. He takes care in stepping near me, his colossal, caramel legs so stout they could certainly crush anyone he may have accidentally come across. And it is easy to keep watch in one direction as he surveys most of the rest and warn him as a multicolored threat springs. His tail swings and down they fly, a feathery mass slamming with a _thuukkkk_ back behind us. When I stray in the shadow of the seismo, it is much more difficult for those dastard ancients to see me but... but there are others too.

H-How will this... _poss_ ibly...

Ahhh, already I feel my limbs on the cusp of tiring... and what is... what is that sensation of—

 _Rupert! There are a great many ancients o-over there! Ohhh, I wish we had Iggy right now, I-Iggy would... Iggy would know what to do!_

 _What are you—ahhh_... That throbbing aroused in my left arm would certainly explain what has happened. I-I forgot... My attention must... divide between seven vivosaurs. And if there is any proof from what happened with Pippy, and with what is happening now, the more hits any of them take, the more I suffer, the easier it is for me to... Truly, how do we plan on... how do we... Ah, my head is pounding, I can hardly see out of these bloody eyes...

Gently I swerve around the seismo and pull back. What weight that already took place on my skull has begun pounding ever harder until I swear there must be some creature attached to my neck, banging—banging rocks into the back of my head where I cannot see it, oh, what in the world is going on ove—

Hands. Pale pink hands. I roll back and stumble on a pile of snow and the blue ball of spines in front of me registers. As does the—the squat form perched atop its head and I cry, _Trikko! Trikko, do watch out!_ With a final shove of his shoulders, the small fiend goes flying and we do not find where it lands. The tricera reigns as another mottled shadow makes up from behind him, which I point out and he swerves again and I turn back only to hit a wall of scales.

Staggering. Shaking my bleary head... ah, stars, stars, no... I force myself upward again and turn out of the way for Tessa to come stomping. She slams into the unruly black mass currently entangled with Trikko and as her skinny tail flickers off, it whips against a thin maw. Just beneath her trembles Zoazoa, her arms wrapped amongst herself and eyes freezing up and spinning wildly from sparking ancient to sparking ancient.

We live inside of a storm. A clouding storm full of monstrous color, and noises, and screams and hisses and burning and I catch sight of something sparking just as I fear it. The fire broils, burning thickly beneath a tongue and glinting along mucky blue scales around the jaw and I take off and grab that thin, sickly girl by her tiny wrist and yank her out of the way. A thin veil of flame hisses and fizzles as the snow beneath contains what so nearly became a searing burn.

I am thanked with a snarl. The ancient girl rips her grip out of mine and her dark eyes cast shadows over me by stare alone. Her lip curls, the under overlapping the upper, and a small bite of tooth gleams dully. "Don't _touch_ me. Leave me a _lone_." That is all she has to say to me before turning, her matted hair sending small cascades of orange rippling against me.

But seconds after, she steps on the fire.

"Aaahhh...aaaAAAAHhhhhh...AHAHHHHHhHHHHHHHHH!"

Her shriek burns like flame to my ears. I duck my head as a hand lashes out near me and her fingers—quickly, horrifyingly quickly—unsheathe these gleaming knives of claws. A snout pours out of where a mouth was once held and the maw curls with a hiss in the direction of the fire. Hair retreats into thin, orange spines. Dark, dark pupils flicker toward me before darting off again.

The first ancient she runs through severs into sparkling, glistening pieces on the spot. I need to step back and I—and I run into someone and duck and fall and trip over someone else and a toe shreds a pant leg and a heel digs into my back for agonizing seconds and I trip and get up and swerve around again and it—and it—and I pause for breaths and it—and there are so... many of them.

Where is my father? Did he—Did he disappear? Oh—Ohhh, no, I've lost sight of him.. oh, no, what in the bloody _world_ is he doing right now? I-I... Where is Dinu? Dinu—Was she—Was she hurt? Was she—was _I—_ where are—

A weight seeps into my temple. Before I know it I feel my head fall and my weakened body with it. Lucid, chilling fangs of pain suck through my mind. Water shatters as it crosses from the maw of some beast high above me; the earth sighs and cracks spill open beneath the feet of boulder-gray vivosaurs. Breath in the air halts and is halted and starts up again in gasps, in flurries, in these horrible squelches suggesting loss and—and—and sometimes then _I_ cannot breathe either, and I catch little snippets, sometimes, of Pippy again, and his massive bulk, or the tiniest flicker of a yellow sea creature hopping from snow pile to snow pile, and every so often Nyra's caw splits the horizon.

Not enough, though. Not... h-hardly enough. Little gasps leave my throat slick, my skin coloring before my eyes, my head throbbing, swooning, and then composing itself seemingly on its own... There are so many noises overpowering my mind that I cannot hardly focus on even one of them, not all this at once, no... A hand flutters for one of my pockets only to remember that at some point it shredded, that at some point Camri and Mistress were set loose as well.

A wry smile cracks my dry lips when I note that a certain peculiarly blue dimetro has also dispersed. He was not even held in the pocket that ripped, that _tramp_... All that remains now is a cynical krypto, her blind gaze unseeing to the tension outside and unhearing of the terrible racket they all have caused.

In the midst of so many things, I miss the warm presence on my sleeve, tugging, for I cannot say how long. When I glance back, my heart squeezes and I scoot over next to the silver stain about the snow, partially curled up, greatly shaking. "Dina?" I manage. My voice is weak. Wet. Hurt in some form by the careless vivosaur whose throat was hacked at in the recent past.

She hears it. A shimmer dies over her figure for a petrifying second before she wrenches herself back and—and a... tail, a red tail, perhaps somewhat solid, passes outside of her. The ancients... The ancients—she has no protection against the ancients. Small gaps in her otherwise glowing form, little twitches, little missing pieces, oh, my heart... my sweet girl, I cannot protect you in this state... Oh, why can I never protect you...

Swallowing, I turn my head aside. "Dina." She turns to my voice. "Dina... You—You cannot be here." Yes—Yes, I can... I can... "You should not. It hurts you and... you are helpless against it." How I can imagine those big, amethyst eyes pulling into my sight, tugging my heartstrings... "Let me create an... opening."

Then, at least—at least for a little while, she may be a little more safe. Her figure grows still, reluctant, thinking, until there is an eventual nod. So soon as it comes I rip back off into the crash of reality again, like that of diving into a crowded ocean, and I let the rampant waters consume me.

Now, if... if I close my eyes and focus... focus rather hard—there—there are sparks I catch. Somewhere off to the side lies a _very_ certain dimetro, whom I call immediately and tell him to clear some sort of path. Of course, he must initially digress and call me a fool—until he catches that I am not the only one he speaks to—and then he attempts to recover and tear open a hole in the wall of voices. As I let Dina in closer to me, my eyes flickering along the flow of monsters and voices and scales, words burn through my head: _Ouch, the hell did I step on_ and _There's that Zoazoa_ and _I hate this I hate this I hate this_ and beneath all of that lies a trembling wail... an ever-flowing waterfall of tears.

H-How many ancients _are_ there? Yes, there was Zongazonga and his daughter, some of the greatest sorcerers to ever exist, and there are smaller, less defined presences that tend to take on a single color and go off from there. As if... condensed, over time, time and time and time crumbling by their weakening emotional states, their once-grand entities now pathetic shells of what was.

Not all... were so lucky to be so powerful. What... What is it, that bound them here? Was it a... spell? Some sort of power too great for them to control themselves? What moves the will of ancients, still far more enchanting and influential, their intensity far more potent than that of... say, Gyntis, or Camri, or Reyna or any of them for that matter.

Hah. And to think I figured that I understood that power, when I was possessed by one of their kind. What a... frightening lifestyle, that of an ancient. I swallow, turning back, searching for little kernels of consciousness in this haze. Ah—There—There lies—

 _Sunny, I beg of you. Do you see the small row of ancients back here? Could you trip them under their feet and—_

 _Clear a path? I mean, okay, but why?_

Then she detects Dina's presence, just as Torn had, and she must sense a wariness in her that my eye alone cannot trifle with, for she goes deadly silent and disperses. With the dimetro and the marple clearing out the area, it is not long before I can lead my darling out of the chaos. A wavering hand continues to reach up to her head...

O-Oh. She must—She must hear it too. The voices, the noise, the cacophony unending on all sides of us. I... I have begun to grow used to it, I admit. The voices have quickly morphed into a heightened sense of background sound but... but my poor girl, she... oh, I wish I knew what sort of storm was going through her...

But I simply do not. But—But I can do this. I am not... not _powerless_. Not right here, not now, not in this instance... Not anymore. She pulls up toward me on slow, wavering legs and remains just at my side. When she pauses she phases into me and when she presses near her shoulder disappears into mine. Naught but a particular warmth gives her away, her silvery presence. I still feel it, and I feel her, whispering to duck as tails and claws and talons and feet of all sizes crash down around us.

Sunny took care in leading other ancients astray, and I cannot begin to wonder what havoc Torn caused for the sake of his fighter—too much, surely. There it is, a well-rounded gap in the onslaught, a puddle of white in an otherwise mess of jumbled color. As I lead her, my gaze darts along all sides of the roaring mass, turning backward some number of times, just to be sure. There are moments where a head will hang over the gap, but usually this is solved by a quick, blue-scaled paw reaching out and yanking it back in.

Once we reach the outskirts, I ease back and let Dina trot ahead. Her... Oh, her weak movements are not reassuring... I can almost see her little pinched face, cheeks a pale green, nauseated. So much as I want her to escape I fear that leaving her off on her own like this will result in a worse condition... not to mention that if Zoazoa finds her in this state... she will stand no chance, then, wi-will she. And Dina always had such a weak will as it was... H-How long can she keep this up? How long can—

Speckled sparks gently cup my cheek. Little silvery bits of light gleam beneath my chin, a powerful warmth seeping into me from where her hand lies. Her little... silvery hand. Her body... Her body is weak like mine was when... Zongazonga—and I—and I remember this but... but still I... still I... ahh...

The world tips and spills over as a crack ignites somewhere high above me and I—and I feel a sharp stabbing sensation at the top of my head. My knees... buckle and I crumple to the snow-stained earth, my legs frigid beneath me, head burning above, eyes... eyes—I—I squint—o-or I try to and—and what are those... spinning flashes of... red? I cannot... cannot tell. A sudden spurt of cerulean shreds the sky above and melds into the background somewhere off I cannot quite tell and it... oh—silver— _silver—_ I beckon her on— _go, go—_ as my hands squeeze under my head and cup it and I...

When I glance up again, meekly, barely, head spinning on my shoulders, there is no speck of silver to be seen. So she... she is...

Oh, thank... _goodness_...

This hard ringing in my ear, hidden behind this obnoxious part of my head ever-slipping out of reach, drills into me for I cannot say how long but I... feel it and I see it and I taste a heavy, metallic coating in my mouth and why is... the world so blurry... There goes another shimmering figure and one other passing along it and in seconds one maw snaps upon the other and this high-pitched squeal joins the fray of never-ending screams.

And then another—and another and bodies smearing all amongst me, like paint on Mier's old palette in his old room in the room that was destroyed by an ancient and all of these problems an ancient here caused that caused us to leave to leave us stranded here... all alone...

 _Pip... pip... plip... pip..._

Smeared tearstains of scarlet seep out of my head and cry upon the earth. Such tiny sounds. Such tiny things. I feel some of them sticking to my back, to my hair, to my skin. My mouth has gone dry again and when I wet it again the rough, metallic tang returns. My lips... feel rough, uneven—oh, bloo—

We-Well. To stay here would be not very much of a liable conclusion.

So I raise. So I raise and I wipe back what blood I can from my face, from my head, shedding visceral marks into the slush far below. My fingers grew numb some time ago. My forehead, however, burns mightily. When I press a hand to my temple it practically melts off what chill I had accumulated, and for some time the heel bites with the cold until it eventually grows numb again, unfeeling to the cold, too much to carry otherwise.

This is not... so different from... when I broke my foot. Ye-Yes, _certainly_. I will tell myself so and this will make it that much easier. So I swallow and I raise and I continue shouldering the weight I put upon myself. And when a new wound freshly sluices seemingly out of thin air and another sting adds to the unending sting passing through my entire body at all times I... well, I shoulder that too, and I continue on.

Seven vivosaurs... No—No, wait, it is _ten_ now, that is right, and it would be eleven but for the single medal that remains nestled in my one functional pocket. In a bout of lightheadedness I scoop her ivory pendant out and I tightly grasp it, and it gives me something to hold onto, and... and that is nice, that is very nice for me. Very... nice.

Reyna must feel my agony. Whether or not she cares I cannot tell. So I continue to shoulder the weight and I search, heedfully, carefully, tirelessly, for someone, for Dinu, for anyone, really. For the people I so often distanced myself from. There are moments where I cease and I wonder if they have already left, if I will even see Luk or Mier or any of them ever again, if the first was right when he said that things were about to change on a level entirely outside of our understanding.

I simply do not know any of these things, but at this point I am left at a loss, at a bloodied and beaten and battered loss and I am sure if my father saw me now he would find me unrecognizable.

Ha-Hah. Haha... Good, good...

Unrestrained tears seep out of the corners of my eyes and I cannot tell whether they come from my laughter or the pain that resonates from deep down inside of me when the laughter comes.

When I glimpse back around the area again, I... I swear there is a definitive lack of ancients now. While my pain has not lessened, it has yet to worsen further in some time, and... I can see the sky again, and the snow. There are stars, little dots, ferociously bright, and I cannot shake off this ridiculous feeling that they shine so greatly if only to prove their existence, that they are very much real and very much alive and very much waiting. For what, I cannot say.

Wait... it's morning. Where did the stars come from...

I must be delirious. It should frighten me more than it does when I find the truth in these words.

I never thought I would go delirious in my life. It was just my father, a pedestal, and myself strapped on top of it, and that was it. Ha-Haha, I never thought _any_ of this was real until it all began to fall apart...

And falling apart—as this circle of demented monsters is—it does not take long to spot her. _Dinu_ , I try to cry but it seems I have lost my voice. There is... so much blood encrusted there that I doubt I will be able to speak anytime soon at all. Perhaps it is instinct alone or perhaps it is a sense of recognition that causes her to turn and glance over me, but when she does her pale face completely disregards any sense of color outside of the ghastly white that sucks out all other tones within. She launches herself at me and a thin hand snaps over my arm.

"RUPERT, WHAT THE F—FU...Hhhhh... I... I... h-holy shit, Rupert...

Her ordinarily pinched and narrowed eyes, a condescending sort of golden, have widened. Great circles of white encase her frantic irises and she tugs at me a little harder, like this changes anything. "Rupert... Rupert, you... you look so, you look... I, uhh, _you_... ffffffff..." So in shock she suddenly bites her lip and yelps. "FFUCK!" She darts back and then she glances forward again, her blonde hair a swirling mop around her.

Minor wounds cut along her arms, her cheek, her stomach, where a swatch of thick fabric has been accosted. Blood does not linger anywhere upon her exterior.

 _You look so fuck indeed,_ Reyna mutters dreamily. So she _was_ alert, then.

Dinu sputters, falls, jumps back up and latches herself back to my arm. She brushes her short, choppy hair over a shoulder and it returns to shrouding her face in seconds. "We need to... You... I—we—uhhhhgggg"—her gaze spinning all around us as she spits words—"DAMM _MMIT,_ WHERE DID ZOAZOA GO OFF TO THIS TIME? SHHHIT, SHIT SHIT..." She slams back and leaps forward and almost runs through me.

When a rather worrisome trail of blood streams by with her, I begin to wonder just what situation I... lie in. Oh, dear.

"Dinu." Ah. So it does still work, if but... slightly. Very weak, very... painful. A rasping cut in my throat every word I try—every word a trial. "Di-Dinu. Di...nu. Dinu." And enough tries and her frenzied gaze cuts out upon me, her mouth still agape. "I think... I know." Oh, no...

Big, frantic eyes watch me try to explain. "Dina... Dina... left. The ancients"—pointing vaguely in one's direction—"hurt... her. So... Zo-Zoa-Zo—Zoa... went aft—"

Another loud curse slams out of her mouth before she cups her face with a hand, cheeks burning. After a few seconds, Dinu dares remove her palm and glances back about the area. "Well... be—behind us we have a particularly gigantic... thing." In front of me, behind her, lies a slope, carefully winding upward and upward and disappearing into a cloudy mist. The peak. "They... probably went up there, huh. Not... much else to go to." Her thin, pale lip curls into a snarl, fingernails clenching over my wrist.

She releases soon after, her body rapidly losing what tension it held. "Well you're... f-fine I _guess_..." And she jolts after that. "I'll go make an opening. Ye-Yeah. _Yeah_. There's less ancients but they're still very real and... and... and your damn _father_ 's around her somewhere to, huh... hhhgh..."

"Di-Din—?"

"Shut up. Let me do this." Like that, there my cousin goes. She tosses her head back once to yell, "And you can't stop me! This is something I'm doing for _you_! You... bastard!"

I am afraid I have nothing to say to that. My mind goes... blank.

Reyna snorts, curling up around herself. _Dinu's funny. She gets so defensive when she tries to do anything for anyone else._

 _Well, you..._ A weak smile touches my lips. _You are not wrong._ What a... strange girl, my cousin...

 _Clomp, clomp, clomp, clom—_

I whip back around at the sound of those telltale boots and steel myself for... for the worst, whatever that is. At this point I cannot even tell if there is a worse still when over in his hand I—I see—there is... another hand. Worn, and cut, and then cut again, a soft brown coloration.

"Fa-Father, what are you d—"

"Whatever it takes." Voice weak, a sly, bitter rumble. "Whatever it takes to show my son why he must return to me. Where he _belongs_." H-He already said that earlier... What in the world does he have that he thinks would... would... "Therefore I'm removing the idle fancy it was that broke your eyes away from me."

With a flourish, he yanks the person behind him forward and I—and I—I cannot say what overcomes me when a brown-skinned woman, her waist-length pink hair tumbling all about her, spills onto the snow. Cuts after cuts after cuts seep through her and enough dried crimson lies upon her poor, trembling figure that almost more red than brown dyes her skin.

I-It takes me a moment to recognize her, it is so s- _strange_ to see her in such a weak... state... _Pauleen_... I've lost all the breath in my lungs and I just stand there, an idiot with my mouth open, and I cannot think of a single thing to say, of a single thing to do I just go... empty.

"Ha-Hahahaha." My gaze snaps up to the sunglasses concealing lifeless voids for eyes. "I thought you would react so. How does it feel, seeing your precious Dina like this? And how about her... her monstrous little _pet_?"

When it is rather evidently Pauleen trembling at my feet and _rather evidently_ not _Torn_ but _Sivan_ who is kicked up near me by one of the viscous ancients I-I think I am allowed my bewildered silence.

Swallowing, I make a last meager glance in the direction of my father and go to my knees, leaning close to the girl. "Di... _na._ " One emerald eye dares flash into my face. "You... poor girl."

I try to mask my confusion but of course I have already torn down the barriers that let me hide so freely and it seems I have fo-forgotten how to... Pauleen, mouthing some assortment of words, eventually ducks her head and mutters, "Yep, it's me," in this soft, self-deprecating tone, a grin twitching on her lips.

What... _happened_ here?

She sees the lie in her eyes and she swallows it whole and I cannot begin to question where all of those vulgar wounds originated and I cannot even come up with what to do here before a voice pierces the frozen air:

"RUUUUUUPEEERTT! GET OVER HERE!"

Dinu. So much as I turn, my heart squeezes like a fist has wrapped tightly round it and there is no way I can look away from Pauleen, not completely. My mind runs through these diverse scenarios that all end in her... her... in my father... he... he _harming_ her and _leaving_ her and I feel this hot, heavy whisper in my head asking, asking what I should do.

Because behind all of that there is still my girlfriend, my beloved, my darling, my— _Dina_... her very existence at stake.

Footsteps pommel the snow, flakes crushed and kicked aside as my cousin strides toward us. Her hand cups my shoulder and she pushes me back, and then her golden gaze lands upon the scene in front of me. A few choice morsels of words run over her lips, all silent, at a breakneck pace, until she exhales loudly and shoulders me aside. A hand points back to where she came from. "Go. Now."

"But... But Di—"

She rolls her eyes, thrusts me back again. "We all know you're gonna run away eventually."

" _Di—_ "

"This is the easy side of things, you know that? I just have to wipe up the mess your dad made with him and then get all the ancients out of the way and..." She pauses. A slight hiccup interrupts her flow and she starts. "Be-Besides. If you made it this far, I mean..." Is she blushing? Dinu? "You're... practically unstoppable at this point. R-Right? Just...

The smile she plastered so surely upon her face begins to wobble. "Go... Go easy on... _her_. She's not... a monster. She's just... hurt and stuff, like—like all of us." Before she loses whatever mask she made up, her lip screws into a scowl again. Same Dinu, unchanging.

But we all know that is not true.

When I feel my fingers trembling I—I know I need to... I need to go. "Th-Thank you," I whisper and then that is over and I take off to the slope where the ancients no longer lie like majestic, surreal guards. Snow falls in a tizzy about me and I see my breaths frantically emptying into the air with each gasp and release and I do not stop there, I cannot stop, and it astounds me that I have this much strength left inside of me until Reyna coughs and I blush and... still not alone, huh.

 _Shut up, you. Get over it. Get over something, would you._

She must hear my laughter, the tears streaming from my eyes, down my filthy cheeks and down again, dipping into the frothy ice below somewhere, or perhaps freezing to my clothes before they ever get that far.

Somehow... it... like, it... reminds me of someplace, somewhere else...

It reminds me of... of when... when I was...

 _My head rickets forward. I catch a breath. Stone and colors of muted gray swim in front of me; I thrash forward and land gracelessly with my head on the stone, a cracking whisper twisted into the air._

And I swerve then as I catch myself from falling. I—Yes, that is... that is right... this is just like _then_ , back when I woke on that first day knowing fully well that the girl I so loved would no longer be with me. H-Hah... so far I have come and yet so little, too... So far, and yet... and yet I... ah, this throbbing pain in my chest...

Whether or not my father follows, I... I cannot be sure. But perhaps he will not this time. H-He should stop... He should stop chasing after me... I-I am... I cannot last around him any longer, I have already... I am already so...

Well, it... matters not now. What matters is... she. Finding her, saving her, protection and warmth and... seeing her smile. Caring... A warm hand... Tears... Oh, Dina...

No longer... will I let these creatures, these chains, hold me down.

S-So what if I must run away in order to defeat them...

 _Mistress_

So far as we come, so far as we go, so many of the ancients that topple over, I am afraid to admit that there's too many to claim defeat over. Too many for us alone to stop. Yes, they use that strange power of theirs to turn solid, and yes, when they turn solid it is invariably simple to crush them with our claws, our teeth, our spiny tails... but they crush us back. And there are too many of them.

Camri, the dear thing, he's convinced himself otherwise. _Mistress! No long face! I will handle this and thus we shall send the enemy to another world entirely, one dripping of loss and pain!_ And he thinks, sometimes, that he's convinced me otherwise too.

Such a sweet soul... _Yes, of course, dearie. I understand._ Heh... yes, I understand...

So he glimpses back toward me again. _You do, yes? Of course you do. To lose this battle... why, that shall not happen on my behalf!_ And the krona speaks so highly, in such a strong, flagrant tone, his chest out, his tail swaggering about him. And his eyes are so full, and his snout so perfectly tilted, the shadows falling in the right spots around him... and he's terrified, isn't he. He doesn't say it, perhaps doesn't even think it, the poor dearie, but anyone who watches him long enough can see it.

Why else would he force himself into Rupert's face every time the chance arises? Because if Rupert doesn't love him, doesn't love him so much as he wishes, someone who I may have mentioned aside has won countless awards, then that's it, no?

Failure's faces come in different shades. Dear, dear thing...

From somewhere beneath the snow, Sunny's figure wriggles uncomfortably. _Guys! Stop talking, more... doing things!_ And even as she cries it she trips some poor sauropod to the ground with a _thummph_. To which the marple replies to herself, _Get over here and do things!_

She wants to believe Camri, so much as she dislikes him. She wants to somewhere deep inside of her, but she knows otherwise, she knows what sort of situation we have formulating around us and she's scared of something else entirely, of admitting that... this is it. We're powerless to cease the fire burning on all ends.

So Sunny yells and we slash at the petty ancients she manages to trip. She screeches in fury when it doesn't go down after some few number of hitting and bashing and she screeches evermore when its form goes light, airy, smoking into nothingness.

Not very far off lie the seismo, the pachy. They make quick work: one swings and the other ducks around his legs and attacks on the other side. Not all that mobile, and a rift is beginning to open up between the area here to avoid the impact entirely, slowly but surely. And then of course one could beg to differ that that means Gyntis now has an opening to thread though, to stab where the flow grows fat and edge them into a corner, but he is not all that large, all that powerful on his own.

Nyra, above, cries softer, and softer, as she watches the rift continue to split. Trembling wings block out swaths of the sky at a time, this bleak, snowy, murky sky. There's supposed to be a sun around here somewhere, but I can't say I've caught a glimpse of it.

Those dear vivosaurs, the one Dina put so much love into, surely thus put their greatest efforts into their work, and I would be lying if I said they were useless and made not a single dent in the ranks of the ancients... but I would also be lying if I said they had overpowered the flow in any way, shape or form. Close, but... no. I'm not sure it's very close at all.

We all saw him disappear, our Rupert. He darted off in the midst of one of these fluctuations, before ancients fattened up their line and blotted out the vast majority of the world around us.

While he spoke not a word to us, to any of us—save Reyna, who remained with him for some reason only known to she—we all watched him dart off... bathed in blood. A disturbing sight at first glance, yes, and I hate to say that nigh all of the blood upon him originated from him, not some nearby wound in a vivosaur; but there is something else about it.

He took that weight up, he took all of those little wounds and cuts and kicks and punches and pains and he carried them. Himself. All himself. Shared them... with us, and let us keep going again, and again and again, half or so of our strength returned.

 _Ten_ vivosaurs, Rupert. Do you remember, my dear boy, do you remember the tournaments you took place in so long ago as your heart lost its soul? Do you recollect those little trifles of things? You were only allowed to use three, what with the collateral damage it caused the whole lot of you. You take their wounds and they keep going and sure... it helps.

But you're only supposed to use three at a time.

Look at you, Rupert... you precious boy, oh...

I sit here and I take hits and I let them claim me without a care, for I have long lost my will to fight. But I still sit here and I smile, I smile for a boy that so long since held nothing inside of him but soulless suffering. A pit of grief, where things came and things died.

Will you dig out that little hole, and will you set your pain free?

Oh, you dear thing... I do trust you find inside of yourself what you lacked before.

 **MISTRESS! Mistress makes me so pumped, but we haven't seen her in awhile so I forgot about that, sadface**

 **Mistress... makes me so pumped xD She's just! I dunno! She's Mistress! I love the whole dearie thing and she's just blatantly not fighting and all xD She's got her reasons and I love her for that, hahaha... Mistress is great. At least, I think she is, eheh. Mapo queen pride!**

 **Then there's the insane that is Rupert xD Oh my gosh... Mier was right when he asked Rupert if he was gonna be impossible, huh xD haha... That's not it, I'm joking.**

 **Isn't it funny? One of Rupert's greatest flaws is now his greatest strength, right here. For so long it's been an emotional barrier and a trust issue and it's seriously messed him up that Dina's not here, since he put so much of himself into her... but _only_ her. And while that has started to clear up over time, there's still this lull in him, and it makes you wonder how... stable he is. And it's like no wonder he keeps running away, huh, heh.**

 **And now! And now it's most likely the one thing that's kept him from falling over and giving up already! XD this is insane! Heck I paused in the middle of writing this and I just needed to stop, I was like, haha, Rupert, you're too much for me...**

 **It's funny, huh. Haha...**


	37. Da: Incarnation

**Ahhhh, it's weird thinking how close everything is... maaan xD This is a chapter that's been in my head for years now... writing it out— _finally_ writing it out, it's like, it's like... ahhhh! Haha... It's hard to believe, I guess...**

 **Dina: nnnnn... It is scary...**

 **Torn: -C'mon Dina get your shit together almost there-**

 **Dina: ;w;**

 **Torn: -Come onnnnnnnnnn we can do thissssss-**

 **Dina: -tries to stifle some of her whimpers and sort of fails-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 37: Incarnation

 _Dina_

I wish I could hear my own breath. Gasping, gasping off the cusp of sound, hot and hard and... itchy in my throat, my translucent throat, my eyes and hair and hands and motions all so very jagged, so very wild. Stumbles and slips and feet that slide straight through the snow below. Wide eyes that I cannot see, that no one can see. Blank and silver, spinning all around me, a snowstorm within a snowstorm. Colder, colder, particles of ice piling onto the plain as it gathers speed and climbs upward, upward, further.

So much energy, fleeting, spilling out of me like blood from a wound, my head dizzy, my breath not even breaking the horizon and it... and it feels so strange, so different not to see any sense of my presence being here. It... It twists into my heard, a cold, chilling sensation... it hurts. It hurts not... being real. It hurts not to be seen, to be felt, to be... there.

His eyes were so much stronger, his gaze so much more focused upon me when I saw him. Gentle yellow irises took me in, a lip twitching into the faint impression of a smile almost immediately. Ghostly pale, battered, yes, but... so real. Different, yes, but... oh, but... I _still_ cannot remember his name. Nobody spoke it, either, nobody had a reason to drop it into conversation. And it is not as if he knows I do not remember... the beloved I created in my head, in her trap, _he_ knew, but... he was not real.

Dinu. Dinu... is someone else. She fits into a little space in my memories, with the Calio Slablets and the semifinals of the Caliosteo Cup—I remember—I remember _he_ had to fight her, but she did not care if she won and let him demolish her team. And then my beloved and I were in the final round... because in the semifinals—that is right, that is... Pauleen broke my hand and it all comes spinning back into me like a plow to my chest.

Woozy and frantic, I crash into the earth below, my body partially... sinking into snow. I try to yank out legs and toes and knees without much luck: still, some vague piece of me phases through. There is a faint nip, if at all, of the chill, but it may also be my wishful mind supplying the notion for me...

Ah... No, no, Dina, you need to keep going—I—ah— _remember_ , remember the hurt and shocked and drained expression on his face as he opened up that little path in the snow for you, as that ancient smacked him in the wrong place and he crumpled to his knees and he told you to keep going... He told you because he saw it too, the concentration in the air, the snapping of scales and claws and flames and too many things to keep track of.

A shaking hand flicks up to my side. I watch, head tilted, as a slight discoloration plays along the silvery wisps, faint white to nothing to white to silver again, strengthening and then blinking out when I am not very attentive. Saw all that, he... he saw all that, too, with wide golden eyes... Nnnf, I can—I-I can do this...

No Torn, no beloved, no Dinu, even. And that... that is _fine_. Ye-Yes.

One step, two, three, pushing back through a world so much solid than me, when the claws fasten around my whispers of pressure tremble up and down my spine as the nails tighten and tighten and seek little chinks in my wispy armor, if even armor at all, as I feel myself beginning to melt beneath her presence.

Gasp. I do not even hear it but it trembles down deep from within me and I jerk out of her large—shaky—grip. For sudden seconds I find myself unable to breathe and nearly collapse, just like that, all over again. My body aches for the ground and I—and I have to force, on trembling feet, myself back up. It seems even in this form my muscles pause, clumsy with the motions, with standing up and going still instead of utter collapse. H-Heh, that is a little embarrassing...

My eyes reluctantly trail back up to the thing that caught me and I forget what feeling it was stuck in my throat, just that it lumps and sticks and suddenly I cannot breathe all over again. The wet pinch in my face—a suggestion of tears—trembling little fingers mashed into fists that not even I can make out of small, silvery wads of... of something, I cannot even tell what.

What surprises me is not my soft attempt at speaking, running over the words in my mouth, wincing at each stutter. What surprises me is when it pours through, hot and wet and flowing. "I-I—Nnnnh! Z-Zoazoa, it is... y-you!" While raspy at best and but a stub of what I once could freely speak with, any voice is more welcome than none at all.

In a rush of sound, my flushed cheeks push out air loudly. Zoazoa, so quiet now, her bloody gaze sharp, murderous, gives off the impression that I am even louder. That every tiny whisper of noise that comes out of me is an explosion. My twitching body. The slight yelp as the cold sneaks up into my feet. Hair twirling in the breeze. Hard, hard gasps of breath.

Stony silent, she faces me in a shimmering aura of ice. I lose my nerve and glance back. One... two—

Faster, faster, I turn back and flee. My tail spikes up behind me, wagging frantically, back and forth and back and pelleted in snow, and I hear her thorny feet crunching on behind me and my heart goes pounding wildly in my chest.

These ghostly whimpers begin in my chest. I try to stifle them, to halt them in the midst of their beckons, to swallow them back down... but they do not want to stay down, and so in the end I sate myself in the attempt of ignoring their existence. She must hear me so well, oh, she must know exactly where I am, _oh_ , any chance of a lead I once had is horrendously mistaken.

When the footsteps stop. Oh, the horrible stench of silence overcomes me and with a quiet cry I lurch off as nails claw past one of my shoulders. I glance over it and there they go, beady dark droplets, but I do not stay long enough to find out what they mean, where they land, what they do. M-Maybe Zoazoa will get curious and she will spend some time doing that instead of... instead of...

Nnnn _nnn_ nn _nngg_ g _hhh_...

What happens when she... when that is... when she lops of _more_ than part of a shoulder...

H-Huh... She was not kidding... when she said... she was ready to kill me.

I wish I still did not care. I wish it did not matter to me, then, then this—this terrible pounding in my head would go away, then my heart would stop beating so frantically, then I would not have to swallow around a boulder in my throat, then I would not have to breathe so _loudly_ again... but then I would not have to breathe at all I-I guess and I... I am not sure if I can d—dhhh—

 _PWHHFH!_

Oh—Ohh...Ahh, hill, hill, I-I did not see that hill coming, oh no... My fingers twist around the throbbing ankle in question but I think it has gone numb, too much snow, too much exertion, not enough rest. We-Well if that is all that is the matter then that is _fine_ , I am _fine_ , absolutely wonderfully _fine_ , oh... S-Stop trembling so much, Dina...

It appears I have lost the girl, if but for precious seconds. Scrambling, I duck around the side, my fingers digging into the snow—only stopping to wonder now if that even helps with anything. Another ledge, a second ledge, precarious and scabbed over in hard stones and frost, rests just in front of my feet. In the pounding moments I have before she shows up again, my head splitting, heart shrieking in my chest, I think about it, I really do, I think maybe I should—maybe I should ju—

Her guttural screech sizzles in the frigid air. Maybe a sliver of her shadow crosses my vision—wh-what a bright sun up above—and that is all it takes for my foot to slip. Words, sounds, meaningless jumble fly from my lips and I cannot begin to say what happens next and tears gush out of the corners of my frozen cheeks and my raw fingers slip and a toe slams against a stone and then I cry out a second time—and if she did not hear me the first time she certainly has now.

But whether she finds me I have yet to encounter. My body goes spilling down the slope and sticks into one edge. Trans...parent. Again. And the further I slip and the further I stick... the more silver my body goes, the more edges I lose, until all I am is but stardust glued together again. No voice, no pain, no cold... Somehow I miss it. This raw aching... in my chest, lulling, throbbing.

My eyes just so happen to stray over the far side of this ledge... and it is unanimously decided I should not fall off this next one. Thick, hard rocks support my vague figure as best as either of us can manage; my palms bite into their surfaces as I curl up and scrabble past all of that slick ice. When I find another batch of snow again, it is without thinking that I climb. Down, down drops beneath me; while I try to chastise myself from looking, my gaze snaps back anyways, staring down that tipping vortex of swirling white and nothing else.

That would... hurt. If I fell from here.

We-Well... There are no more ancients over here, hu-huh... That is good, that is... _very_ good... A soft gasp peels out of my throat when I slip, unfocused, and I turn back to the task in front of me. This scary... expedition.

My beloved, the Mier boy, oh, _Todd_... I wonder where they are now. It hurts, a little, thinking of them, this pinching ache in my chest, but I smile beside myself too.

As I climb, my mind wanders, and steadily I steer it in the direction of the ancient that _is_ here, though I cannot see her now. H-How do I fare against her? S-Sure, I know the limits of my body, of the battle form she transformed herself into... but it is not like I have any advantages, where I am now. What do I—What does she—Oh, I grope for any thought of...

That is right. The chill burns out of me. That is _right_... I know her past. I know how lonely she was, for years and years on end. I know the battle she struggled with, the war of adoration and fear, the way she felt about her father. Her... scary father, the only man who ever gave her a piece of kindness. Gentle... warmth. A smile.

Which must be scary. Which—Which must be _really_ scary,really really scary, really hard to live through, really hard to try to do, to stop him and then fail and then die terribly... to haunt my body, select _me_ as a host, seeking shelter from all the scary things that happened to her... taking me over... finding none.

Trembling fingers twitch, clamp, release and—and I lose a good measure of space, sliding back down again. Oh, no...

A trifling piece of me wonders why I even bother here, why I even dare going further when I know who is coming and what she will bring with her, what kind of pains I will be forcing myself through again to come into contact... and then I think of my beloved, whose skin she so easily tore into like the flesh of a fruit, his blood ripening around the cut edges and my stomach clenches.

She has hurt him. Clawed tips of fingers slicing, thicker, thicker, snagging into him and striking where she can... leaving her _work_ on display for all to see. The bruises dappling under his neck, the tapered white scars along his chin, his jawline... the way those hungry eyes follow him as if—as _if_... Oh, I cannot have that, now can I. N-No. _No_. Not... at all.

Ha-Hahaha... if Trikko was here... he would laugh at me... He would laugh at the serious pout on my face and... maybe cheer me on with very subtle, very careful implication. And Nyra would be so... pleased. It is... It is different, the silence in my head, the utter lack of warmth where vivosaurs once were and sometimes—sometimes when I approach Zoazoa so near that I feel myself solidifying there is this permeating sense of a chill eating at my insides. Solemn, strenuous silence.

Heh. But I cannot let myself grow sidetracked. This is... This is important to me. So I need—I _need_ to do this. I need to. I need to try, if naught else. I... My thoughts grow quiet, hushed, thick. I would... take his lashes if I could. I-I _would_. My heart pules at the disfigured slights among an otherwise gentle demeanor, a soft expression...

It makes me sad... seeing him hurt.

And, we-well... I cannot have that. Perhaps this fight grows tiresome, meandering to follow along with, and perhaps I know, embedded deep inside of my head, I know that all of these obstacles, barriers, pains, fears would disappear if I only let them, if I only stopped moving, if I only ceased and rested and let my head fall.

Maybe I should not put so much heart into another person. Maybe I should not... hurt myself so much in order to be near them again. Maybe the effort is not worth it, worth _him_ , at the end of everything. Maybe I should... stop, maybe I really should.

He—Heheh... hah... _maybe..._ maybe, maybe...

 _Maybe one day the word will fit._

Detonation. The feeling explodes from within me, hot and sticky and squeamish down in my lungs until I spill out among the snow again. Ice that bites at my fingers—white fingers, not so silver as they were earlier—soft coppery orange curls streaming out in front of me, the wind biting into those little coiled spots around my eyes. Hot breath, each inhale a sharp piercing sound, wet tears, sharp teeth, a small smile tearing into quavering lips.

But... of course, then, that means— _that_ means—

I duck and curl aside just as fingers shred into the spot where my head just lay. Breathing goes frantic and I feel air accumulate in white puffs around my face as I turn and shift and turn again, back and back and twisting around an onslaught too clumsy and too hasty to predict well enough where I go next. Pulling back, I continue again up the side of the mountain as fog penetrates my senses, wet dew stifling my nose. Wet little jewels encrust among my scales and tousle my hair, tail flying.

Wheezing punctures through. I fall once, twice, and the third time I crumble her claws rake down my back. That strange silvery mist sprays off of me in showers—and I am not quite solid, not truly. Closer, closer to the edge as my heart races and arms pump and feet twist and the next time I slip I know that—that I cannot possibly fall this time, her shadow looming over my figu—

Voice. A... voice. My head pops up from the snow. I turn weakly, hair billowing down in sheets around my face.

Unclear and shaky, I miss whatever the meaning is. But I think they realize, for there is a soft cough before a second attempt, one easily cutting through the mist.

"Release her." My throat catches. "Zoazoa. Re _lease_ her _. Now_."

My... darling, no—do not... please do not get yourself into this.

Heart pounding in my ears. Fingers lurching off of my forehead. I wrench my neck to turn around the body collapsed on top of mine, sharp nails so delicately perched around my spine. One thumb in particular plunges into the thick, corded skin beneath my chin. So much as I try to hold back that whimper I feel it trembling inside of me. Stubborn tears bite at my gaze.

A lip quivers, threatening to open, when I feel the pinch of misty blood-like gray swelling around the newly-cut scratch in my skin. I move my mouth any further and... we-well, I feel the rest of her fingers curling up by my throat. N-No words then. I-I-I can do this.

 _Curch, curch..._ Footsteps beating into the snow as he steps closer. "Zoazoa, I told you t—"

"NO!" Violent growls shred out of her throat and her vibrating body slips as it catches over me. "NO, YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! YOU CAN'T, YOU CAN'T! I WON'T LISTEN! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" Hissing, hissing, whimpering, hating. I try to stay as still as I possibly can, but I cannot help when a finger slips and cuts a lengthy curve out of the bottom of my throat.

Grayish-red plumes and I wince softly, a finger fluttering to try and hide it before he—

"Zoazoa." His voice deadly. H-He saw it. He definitely saw it. " _Cease_."

Such lethal calm causes her to forcibly curl in upon herself. Hissing returns. "SHUT UP!" Her high-pitched whine uneven due to the sudden splurges of cracking. "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UUUUP!" My breathing is frantic soft. Any more and she will—Ahh, ah, that is—That is not good—I... ahhhh, hold your breath, Dina... "I'LL KILL HER RIGHT NOW! RIGHT THIS INSTANT! I WILL, I WILL I WILL I WILL IF YOU KEEP—"

She cuts herself off when a hand clenches around hers, yanking her scrawny form off of mine. A-At some point, she must have lost her battle form... but this entire time, I-I did not even... notice.

My held back tears finally shed down my cheeks as I inhale deeply. I feel myself shaking while trying very hard not to. Nothing... works. Nothing _works_ , not ignoring, not enforcing, not... not... Oh, I feel so—so cold...

When I dare peek back at them again, Zoazoa lies in a state of shock. Her dark, curdling gaze has gone silent in her face and my beloved... oh, my heart twists in my chest at that... look. He swallows, eyes narrowed, haughty globes of burning saffron penetrating deep into her face, his face set, rigid, lips slightly parted as he breathes hard.

When I glance upon the utter hatred gleaming from inside of him, I... finally go still.

My... beloved... oh, my beloved... _oh_ my be _love_ d...

A head snaps and I turn and I watch as the ancient inside of my body hardens and her jaw unhinges then, flashing sharp teeth and she launches and words wrench out of my mouth as I toss myself forward and she slams into me and those—those claws, those... those teeth... puncture my neck. I squirm back at the touch, at the... cold mouth in my throat, the claws shredding my arms, compressing me against her, when she pulls back and stares and eyes split wide open when I collapse instead of he.

With a _crrch_ , my semi-transparent form hits the snow, crumpling upon impact. So many puncture wounds bleed out of me that the ghastly silver color leaves me drained, my complexion... weakening, my vision... my vision is so... so... so... fleeting. Spinning white pulls against my unrelenting head. Bright, bright golden eyes find mine and I can make out the impression of a face, a face lacking color... tears sprawling out upon me from the figure above.

 _Dina_ , I hear him crying, _Dina_ , in this weak, faded whisper, bubbling in my head. My lips purse and form at the word I lack, the word that makes up a heart, my heart, the heart I so filled with him, but the name is still not there, and I cannot say it, cannot say _him..._ cannot before I... before it all...

Oh, dizzying darkness... I did not miss your presence...

Colors beaten out of me... body aching... mind a mess, a strewn mess of emotion and dry loss... Breaths weak, but—but audible... gasping little gulps of air, whatever I can manage... A discordant song breaking into my consciousness, hammering out my feelings, my heart, my sight... until the snow crumbles from beneath me and all that is left are the ashes.

I sit up and my head falls into my hands... crying again before I can even tell. These awkward, dry, heaping sobs that take away more breath than I can replace, my weak gasps so loud I wonder if he still hears me, somewhere, someplace... oh, I cannot... I cannot _be_ this far away again... I cannot _do_ this one more time, I—I— _I_...

But there is no time to cry. There is no time to feel sorry, to shut down, to break off once more. She may have me trapped again... but that only means I need to be even more careful, not this thoughtless, weeping ditz who will certainly be hurt, be _killed_ , in a painful way if I am any more... disobedient. Uuuf, she will only make it worse if she has to take longer...

No... No! No, no, stop, stop that, stop that... Come on, Dina, come _on_... I did not get this close only to fall all over again. Ye-Yes... Yes, right, right... Oh, I push shaky legs back over shaky feet and stand on the ashes again. A weak smile twists my lip as I lean over, pool a handful of the black particles, and toss them off into the horizon again. There is no change.

Not until a ball of black matter shoots back toward me, one that catches in my hair as I struggle to avoid it, spilling out behind me in a mixture already gone as quickly as it came. Well... that is, until black builds upon black and the pieces stitch themselves together, revealing in frantic harmony the glowing red gaze of the girl whose form has stuffed into a body that was once mine.

Her long face resembles mine, but also does not, too thin, too sharp. The eyes are similar—large—but gaping, empty, pained. Thin, scraggly dark hair sails about her face, softer and straighter than mine... and much more matted. Scars climb up and around her, marking like little tallies of all the things she ever managed in her life, stinging accomplishments, painful reminders. Her body, thinner and much feebler than my own, leans nearer—and she reigns taller than me by a good handful of inches.

Staring back at me. That is all she does for I cannot relay how long. Eyes wide, face set, lip curled over the serrated corners of teeth. Then the lips pull and strain creases over ghastly pale cheeks, compressing, pushing, forcing the words to come. All but easy, not a habit. "You... _die_. Now."

And she stands there like that, staring wildly, waiting... for something. I twitch back with some effort, glancing back and forth, my eyes weak, my smile failing.

"N-Now?" I mumble. "Or... soon?"

Glimmering dark eyes set upon me. "I don't... need your _sass_ ," she spits, dribble gleaming past her lip. "You know how it works. It takes... _time_ , to... make things happen." And her fingers clench, and she—she is waiting. She _is_ waiting. Waiting for enough strength to... kill me.

Oh— _Oh—_ ohhh, then I have time, I have... _time._ But what do I... what can I say? I only have so much and if I waste time filling up the empty air with nonsense then I will be no closer than I already... hmmmm, there must be—must be something I can do... ye-yes, _some_ thing... oh, umm... ashes, ashes, dust, black, um... um...

It sinks down in my stomach. I struggle swallowing, glancing back at her. It hits me then, hard, and I stumble and I squeak, "U-Um... Wh-What was your mom like?"

Her response is as baffled as... well, as it probably should be. "I'm going to kill you." Blatant. Obvious. "My... _mom?_ But I'm... I'm... I..." The gaze dulls and I catch a snatch of something, just a hint of—of—craving, longing.

She does not question me afterward.

"My mom was... was nice. Really... _nice_." Big, dark eyes poke up toward me, as if threatening me to retaliate. "The nicest person to _ever_ exist." She puffs her cheeks. "Ever." And that is final. "But she was... really soft. Really... innocent. She believed things when people told them to her, even—even when they were really outrageous things, things that... couldn't be true." Lips pursed together tightly, she mutters the last sentence in a state of hesitation, flinching partway through: "Like that... that my _dad_ wanted to mate her.

O-Oh. In another world entirely, those big eyes wobble, and Zoazoa struggles to compose herself. "She... She was so... She was so... nice. So much... better. Than my dad. But she didn't live for very long because... because then she heard more lies and she acted on them. Really fast. Too—Too fast. She heard things about how—how my dad was _evil_ and planned to—to _kill_ her and kill _me_ and... and it was too much for her feeble... mortal mind. She tried to run away, tried to... tried to take me with her and then—and then a- _and then_ she..."

She... My face heats. She heard lies about... Zongazonga wanting to... um, to be with her but then... there were lies _later_ about him wanting to... hurt her? So then... So then at some point, that means... that means that maybe there was some form of attachment. Or... Or maybe not, maybe he just saw no reason to kill and that was it but... but still, but...

I remember the gleaming wisps of zombiesaurs that charged out of the night, and while they tore me, they only tore through to get to... to her. To the mother of... Zoazoa. Because it was they who... killed her. _A-Ah._ Ah.

"He wasn't gonna kill her." The voice inside of her throat is tiny, and she speaks like that of a child. "Wasn't... gonna kill her! He only killed people in the tournaments, he wasn't—he's _not_ a monster!" Those eyes lash back at me and she screams, "Does that make _you_ the monster?! ARE YOU THE MONSTER FOR KILLING HIM?" And her voice comes at me so fast and so hot, steaming like fire as it curls along the edges that I flinch back.

Does it... make me a monster? I-I do not know... I do not feel like a monster but from the sound of it Zongazonga did not feel like a monster either...

"Did I..." My voice is tiny, too. But a different tiny. Soft, quiet, gentle. "Did I really... hurt him so badly that I—"

The lip upturns into a snarl. "YES! YOU DID." N-Nnnnh—"YOU KILLED MY DAD!" Wheezes snatch out of her and she curls up around herself, eyes reeling, head blotchy, teeth grinding against one another. "You did— _you_ did! You... You killed him! Way back when he tried to... kill your st _upid_ _boy_ friend! I—I..." Fingers clenching and unclenching, those eyes so wet and shiny I mistake her tears for ink, the color draining out of her face with each sob. "You— _I_... I..." Weak, ragged breaths drag out of her as she falls to her knees. Intense shivers crawl amok her. "I didn't... I didn't _think_ we were monsters..." A gasp, then bleeding into another sob. "We're _not_ monsters... we're not _monsters_... _We're_ not..."

Ahh... But I thought—But I thought... in her memories, in the memories I gleaned out of those visions, I thought... she died at the unfaltering hand of her father. She disobeyed, and she was destroyed.

Maybe... she does not remember it that way. N-No... Maybe not. Maybe... not. Some instinctive curl of my hand opens up and I step toward her, the little cowering creature on the ashes, but her hand snatches out and slaps me back. So that is as far as I get.

I try at starting some number of different sentences, thoughts ajar, thinking— _maybe_... but then I lose it, or I lose my nerve first. Lose the hope in my heart. But she just wails softer and softer, those eyes so sad and weak, and eventually I lose my nerve to not say anything and mumble, "U-Um, what was the name of your mother?" Because she... Because she never told me.

Staring at me like I must be a girl of such vast idiocy that she cannot even form a word to say in response. Then a blink, then a sigh, her head tossed back. "I don't... know. I-It was a long time ago." While wet, while shaky, speak she does. "I don't... know if I ever learned it from her. She didn't... talk much about herself." The lip curls over and she mutters, head low, "I don't want to talk about it anymore." Swallow. "What was _your_ mom like? Cuz I know she's dead too."

"He-Heh..." Before I can think to stop it, a sharp grin bites into my lip. "I... do not know. I think I was... too young to remember much of her. She... She also died... very young." My eyes do not waver from the ground, though I do not feel very much when I relay this to Zoazoa. "A creature... destroyed our home planet. She was still on it... when others escaped. H-Heh, not... not many made it out.

A shard of her remains. "Amethyst. She was... named Amethyst." I like that... simple, maybe, but... nice. I wonder why my brother and I were named after our dad instead... heh, not that I dislike Dina, Dino... Dynal.

While she sits there, staring up at me with wide, vacant eyes, I make my way toward her again, and I sit there, and I watch her, that glassy dark gaze. "Your mom... I am sure your mom was the nicest person to... to, um... ever exist." I am sure...

"Y-You're right." Is that sass? Pff... "She is! She was! She... She always will be. E-Even if she's dead she... she still is." Yes, I... I am sure. "And I... I'll... Nnnnh. I bet she _wants_ me to live. Because... Because I deserve it. I... I deserve it." Wavering, just slightly. "And I do! A-And besides. You didn't... even _try_ to fight it. Not... when you learned about it. Not when I took over. Not until that stupid _boy_ had to..." She trails off. Her eyes are heavy. A-Again. Like storm clouds, waiting to fell rain.

My fingers curl around my legs; I trace vaguely through the ashes on the earth in between us. Flowers, leaves, little things. "He is only... sometimes stupid." My cheeks heat. "He-Heh! No... No, maybe he is always stupid, very stupid, to someone like you. But... But he is... very smart to me." I am not... very smart. Ha-Haha... But that is okay. Because... he is. "If... there is anything he lacks, it is... joy. Heh... he is... he is not very good at smiling."

Zoazoa snaps her face up to my level. Our height difference mars the effect; her trembling chin raises to almost the level of my nose. So I have to look up at the strain she has put upon herself. "You haven't seen him in a long time. You don't... know if that's true anymore." Her fingers snatch upon the soil, blowing up a wad of ash. Small sparkles sizzle off of it but she takes no note. "He smiles more now! And... he's not smart, he... he broke his foot and hurt other people and he's... and he's..." A hiccup. "He's _mean_!" So loudly it reverberates in my ears, _mean mean meeeeaaannnnnnhhh_.

"I do not think he is mean..." I mumble, mostly into my knees. "He is... scared. But he is so gentle and... caring, if you do not scare him." A smile bursts upon my face as I giggle softly. "A lot of things scare him, but... that is okay." Because not a lot of things... scare me. And because I am not very good at being scary myself. Fear was such an integrated part of my life for so long that I must... I must be very resilient against fear now. Ha-Hah... At least, I like to think so. Maybe not so much... a lot of scary things happened while I was inside of Zoazoa...

"Yeah... Y-Yeah?! Well... Well you..." Her eyes drop to her feet, tone soft, quavering. "You don't know that. He's... another person. And you haven't seen him in... in a long time."

My gaze falls too. "But... I love him. I love him... Zoazoa. So I would like to think—I am sorry—I would very much... like to think that I do know him."

When I utter her name, I glance back as she flinches, her body freezing up around her like I... like I gouged her with such a well-aimed fist that she has temporarily lost all of the strength in her body. And then it all comes rushing back, a flood, a whirlpool, a downpour of dizzying power, and she slams back down upon me and there I land, back upon the ashes, the breath sucked out of me.

Her voice, low, guttural, thick, sluices my ear. Hot breath. Punctured by gasps. "No, no, nnn _nnn_ nhoo _ou_ uuuuU _UUUUHHH_ HHH _hhhh_ hhhhhHHH! YOU CAN'T SAY THAT! YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT! YOU KNOW NOTHING, YOU... IDIOT!" Cold claws pierce at my throat, wriggling about the skin and watching it slither between her clenched talons. I feel my voice go higher and my breath come faster, frantic, desperate, until I try to shut it off and these stars explode in dazzling lights about my vision, pockmarking my senses, blinding my sight.

My voice but a pule against her vast currents, I whisper, "But I do," because I do, because I really do love him, really... really. And maybe I should not put so much love into someone, maybe it is wrong to adore the little things about him, the way his eyes light up, the little hesitant quirk of a smile, the way he picks up on any shift in mood so... easily. How... protective he is, and a little clingy—heheh, or maybe a lot—and how easily he shrugs off the way Torn... yells at him, and he makes it look so... silly...

The way he turns to me, the shift immediate, when he hears my laughing... the happiness he tries and fails to hide when he realizes, oh, it was _he_ who made me laugh that way...

I do not mind... if he did change. Even if... if it was in a bad way. Even if... he was mean.

Something about him, something hidden in those warm, yellow eyes... deep down inside of him, something... that he has, and he alone... something that makes him so special, so... important to me... something that evades all past his flaws, or my flaws, or situation or circumstance or _Zoazoa_ , even... or scary ancients.

Because I love him. And as I close my eyes, my heart so warm... I feel safe again. Just thinking of him... so freely, so openly... how I love him.

It is then that I feel the wet _plurp_ on my cheek. For a second my warmth dissolves as I mistake it for a tear in my throat, the warm blood seeping up into my face, landing so perfectly on my cheek, my last moments as I lay dying... when I shift and glance and realize... oh. _Oh_.

"Z-Zoazoa! Wh-Why are you crying!"

No blood in sight, no blood at all, just the fractured expression upon her face, the condensed lips and taut skin and haunting, shimmering eyes. It... It almost _is_ like she cried away the blackness, like all that she has left is the faint impression of a color that once was, beneath the murky dark, beneath this cool, glassy stare. Long ago.

She goes so still, so quiet that I nearly ask her again what is wrong when she raises a hand and stares down at it, slowly shaking her head. Black hair scatters with each shake. Forceful. Weak. "I-I wish... you still didn't care." She shudders, swallowing. "I wish... you let me kill you. Because then I— _then_ I wouldn't have to feel _bad_ about it. I can tell myself what _ever_ I want and it still works because you still don't care.

"Then you had to make it... complicated." Her voice goes quiet again, soft, childish, squeaking every few syllables. A struggle in her face leaves her breathtakingly open, gaze a wild mess, hands clenched together in front of her. Still she lies on top of me. I stay where I am. "You had to... start caring and then I—then I had to start thinking about it, about what I was doing and I... and I...

She swallows again. Snot and tears leak out of her face. "Now if I kill you I... I... Why did you have to make this so hard?" Her face lowers in on mine again. "Why?" Her rank breath spilling out on me. Slimy droplets splatter over my scales. "It would've been so much easier if you just let me win! My... My life was awful! I... deserved another chance to—to _do_ something with it! But why... So you... So why can't you..." Her eyes splinter. She cannot say.

Blank. Having lost her thoughts, I attempt to supplement with mine in this strange, quiet, measured tone. "I... I... um..." Her hysteric breaths slamming against my face. Those wide, hopeless eyes. The ashes crawling underneath me. "I—Torn. Torn... helped me. Helped me try to..." Oh. "But... But he did not—none of them... none of them convinced me. H-Huh." It was _he_ who... "The boy, he... he listened to me. And... made me feel better, and... and then I could not stop thinking about it... about dying, about... losing that and..." And well... then I could not let it happen. It hurt too much to.

"I-I am... sorry." Blush dusts my cheeks. "But I cannot... I cannot... s-stand by and do nothing. Not... again. Not this time." The one time she truly needed me not to. To stay how I always was.

Funny how she is on top of me now, how easy it would be for her to run a claw beneath my throat. I talk so big but... but she may as well have already won. H-Heh. As she lies there, staring at me with such an incredulous face, a sniffle breaks out of me and I wince, turning back. Do not cry _now_... d-do it later... or something.

Her father stands between us. A thin layer of grime, of death, of mistakes that happened before and could happen again, if she let them. Who I... defeated. Because _he_ would hurt my beloved and I could not have that... I could not have him terrorizing people evermore... and then I... and then the _battle form_ and the scales and then it all came together so... fast. S-So well.

His shadow lays on top of us, inching forward and back with each of our flinches and pulls, feints and peaces. Will he strike? Will he prove all-powerful? Or will he not, will he be lost? The memory of the creature sporting such lucid, black eyes, the half-decayed battle form, the monstrous head, those... rotting limbs.

We got so... quiet, now. She wants to kill me but she does not. Wants to live again but yet—but _then_...

And in the midst of this silence, she finally shatters.

"I can't."

What emotion once riveted in her tone has been all but sucked out.

"I can't do this." So simply. So finally. "I can't... kill you. Ha-Hahaha..." A hand covers her face. "I never _could_. I never... could. I-I _told_ myself, I told myself I just needed a little time to adjust, it felt so _weird_ being on the outside for once, living a life, breathing air, having control, but then a little time became more time and then I... and then _you_ started waking up and hating what I did to you and I... Ohhhh... I-I wish I could kill you...

Big, gaping eyes turn back toward me. "Why can't I kill you? H-Heh... why can't I kill you... No, it's obvious." And she turns again, fixated on some point far, far behind me.

As she turns, I regain more of my bearings and manage to pull out from under her, sitting next to the sad... sad girl. Grief edges into her head, and her face tilts toward the ground. Shadows catch by her eyes, round her lips, under her neck, elongating and sharpening like weapons of their own. So much shorter than her, I still have to look up slightly to feel as if I search into her gaze, and whether the shadows hit me or not I cannot tell.

"You're too soft, Dina." Quietly. Her voice hitches when it flows into my name. I flinch a little at it; she never... spoke it before. "Too... soft. You could've killed me first. You know that? You could've killed me first if you just... went and _did_ it. Then it'd be over." A weak laugh crawls out of her throat, and she winces, like it drags out of her, aching and sore. "Then it'd be over before it even started. But you didn't. Because you're too soft."

My eyes pull back. "I... nnnn..." No, but... "I think it was... a little more than that. You—You wanted to live..." When I realize. "Oh! Oh... we can both live! We can... We can _share_ my—"

"No." Shaking her head. A rueful smile pierces her lip. "No. We're not sharing your body, Dina." O-Oh... My gaze lingers back toward her. "I... shouldn't have possessed you. I'm already so... _broken_ , it... it didn't help me." Teasing at a little smile again. A flicker of pain darts along her face. "But you should've done something to stop me. I mean... I lived inside of you for... what, almost twenty years?" She rolls her eyes. "Did _nothing_... you idiot.

She exhales slowly. Softly. Almost like she... is breathing away all the hurt done unto her for so many years. "Dina... please. End this. End _me_. I shouldn't... be here. I shouldn't be here anymore than my—than my _dad_ should be. Oh... gosh, all those poor ancients that..." Her eyes shine, face gentle, pitying. "They probably... shouldn't be here either. It's... been so long—t-too long." Deep intake. "Too long.

And then Zoazoa turns fully to my side, and she asks me again. "Dina. Please kill me."

"A-Ahh..." My heart is... heavy. "But I—I..." Cold. Oh, I feel so cold, cold fingers crawling into my mouth, down my insides... "I-I do not want to... k-kill you... Z-Zoazoa." I-I did not even want to kill Zongazonga... he was just... he was just hurting my beloved so much that I... that I... it all just happened and I...

I never even thought of it like killing until she told me so and... and now I stare back at what I did, so... empty.

She winces. "Dina! Please. I-I don't know if anyone else can even do it... Please." The eyes scatter. A breath hisses out of her. "It's like—like killing my dad. He wasn't real either. He was... He was in a lot of pain for a long time. It's—It's like that.

And then the tears return.

"Please... Please kill me. I can't... I... _please_... kill me..."

And... well, I-I take in her dreary, teary face and those lost eyes and the small, resigned smile. I watch the shadows disperse along her as she raises her head to mine, as she waits patiently for the end she begged so desperately, so gently for. My heart is trembling in my chest and every time I start a sentence the words fall apart before they even reach my lips.

But it is like what my beloved said—what... what he said that his friend, that—that _Mier_ said. About being broken. About being weak, and slowly losing themselves over the centuries upon centuries upon centuries... millenia evermore.

So it is with cold, unfeeling fingers that I lower myself to the ground, that I gather little handfuls of the ashes, that I turn back to face her, that I try at a smile and my smile utterly collapses in upon itself, that I raise the ashes to her stead and send a magnificent bolt of white-hot energy to smite her asunder.

The form begins dissolving so quickly, quickly, picking up speed and dissolving ever faster, then, until she is gone so quickly that it is like with Reyna, with Nyra, with Trikko, like when everyone else left that for a second I convince myself into thinking that she never existed in the first place.

Then with a jolt, white puffs of—of snow harden about me. Soft coughing wracks my throat, my lungs. My eyes frantically dart about the horizon, so horrendously white-capped I fear I never truly escaped the black nexus, merely migrated.

When I catch the silhouette turning. Bundled in sweaters, silvery white hair flipping in the wind, pale skin shrouded in a flush. Wide, golden eyes. Mouth hung slightly agape.

Wordlessly he falls to my side, hands on my shoulders, guiding me to sit up. And then the arms fold around me, and my body hungrily absorbs the warmth he gives off. My hands quickly tighten around him, our foreheads bumping, tears streaming down his cheeks only to freeze as they go.

It is then that I realize how damp my own cheeks are... crusted in frost, layer upon layer of wet... H-How long have I been crying... oh, how long indeed...

His smile meets mine in a sloppy—but ever so warm—so loving—kiss. When his whisper reaches mine he practically speaks through me. "Dina... _Dina_..." his gaze so full, so... tender.

My mind catches on and I try to nod as I search for his name. His name... The piece I was missing for so long, I... I try to focus on his face but the longer I take the... further blurred he gets. But... But it is not from the tears, it is... it is something else... I—Oh, I feel so... _dizzy_... all of a sudden I am tilting and my head lands at his shoulder. His grip tightens upon me.

He never held me so tightly. As gentle as I remember him being and as tight as he did get when I first slipped away... no, this is something else entirely... I... I... Ru... _Ru_...

"Rupert..."

Like a slap, like a stone, like a storm it hits me and I feel my tears come down harder. "Rupert..." My tiny, tiny voice cherishing him and so much love all wrapped inside of two little syllables. Two wonderful, beautiful syllables...

I try to go on, to tell him how I love him, how much I yearned for him as I was gone but I am so... dizzy, so weak and struggling that the words cannot come. They slip lamely off my tongue and I glance up to him and I try to say and before I know it stars trickle into my vision again and I—and I shift toward him and my lips brush his nose and I try to say something, to warn him, to tell him, to—to— _something—_ when I lose it and the world runs dark and then there is nothing.

 _Nyra_

 _aaaaAUUUUGHHHH!_

That... That..! Ahhh, some... _monstrous_ paw just ran flat on top of me. I grunt and I squeeze and I wriggle back from the monsoon of throbbing pain that follows... but it seems I'm not moving anywhere anytime soon. Stars spangle my vision and I cry, trying, oh, trying to force myself erect and, well, failing miserably.

I'm stuck. Oh—Oh, look who it is, I know that voi—

 _HOLY FUCK NYRA, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? TELL ME WHAT DO—AUUHH! SHIT!_ The dimetro swerves as a second paw nearly comes down on him next.

I squeal. _TORN! LOOK OUT, LOOK OUT! DON'T COME ANY CLOSER OR YOU—YOU'LL GET HURT TOO! BE—BE CAREFUL, TORN!_

Of course, Torn is the polar opposite of careful and immediately goes barging back in until I snap at him to get back again, that—that _idiot_ dimetro. The ancient's... well, he's got me, th-that much is sure. My... My gaze is going gray, too... oh, no, I won't last much longer if this weight doesn't come off of my back...

And of course, Torn has to pick up on that tidbit too. _SHHHHHHH—FFF—FFUUHHHCCKK! GAAAAH, DAMMIT! NYRA, WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO! THIS THING'S FUCKING GINORMOUS! I CAN'T... I CAN'T... AHHHH, DAMMIT! DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT ALL TO HELL!_ He goes screaming and stomping and tries toward me again, only for the shadow of a paw to scrape by and yank him back by the tail until he can slither out again.

I'm not sure how long we end up arguing about this. It goes on for some time, but I'm so busy phasing in and out of consciousness that I can't say I'm sure just how long it goes. Torn, the stubborn work he is, won't leave me be, even so. I know it's... it's coming soon, though, I feel it... but that... oh, that _fool_ , he won't go...

Because he has those _feelings_ , I bet. Oooh...

It's neither of us that get the other to listen. In the end, it's... it's her.

A voice, a presence, a sensation searing hot down my brain. A screech tumbles out of me and I stumble forward but I can't even get forward so I just stay this awful, crumpled mess.

Reyna's—Reyna's saying something. I feel that presence and then I _hear_ Reyna up there with Rupert and—and— _and_ it all just comes crashing down on me.

 _TORN! TORN! DID YOU FEEL THAT! PLEASE TELL ME YOU FELT THAT, TORN!_

 _WHAT THE HELL OF COURSE I FELT IT! WHERE THE FUCK IS REY—_

Tears jam out of my eyes. _DIIINAAAAA! TORN, THAT'S DINAAAA! SHE'S! SHE'S BACK! SHE'S OKAY! TORN, YOU HAVE TO GO GET HER! GO FIND REYNA AND GET HER!_

 _WHAT THE FUCK?_ He pauses then. _NO! NYRA, YOU'RE COMING!_

Oh, goodness, what a stubborn... _NO!_ I hiss. _TORN, GET OVER IT! YOU SHOULD'VE KNOWN BY NOW THAT I'M NOT GOING TO DEVELOP ANY SORT OF FEELINGS FOR YOU!_ When I catch a third voice, lumbering off somewhere, still safe, still alive, still— _TORN! GO GET YOUR BEST FRIEND AND SAVE HER YOURSELVES!_

There we go. He starts turning back, this look of confusion thick in his face. _ARE YOU SURE? NY-NYRA! YOU CAN'T BE SURE! MAYBE YOU'RE JUST—_

 _NO, TORN._ I cough. _No._ And _my_ best friend, the one _I_ always go to... she comes into my head. Mistress. Mistress, regal and sweet and overprotective Mistress, losing her heart over some loser like Camri, like _anyone_ , someone so strong and empathetic as her falling so easily. Losing _hope_... so easily. I-I can't have that. If there's anything I know I can't have that.

It all flashes through me like glass. It leaves me breathless. Leaves me aching. Oh, _Torn_...

But there's something we all can agree to. _GO GET TRIKKO AND FIND HER!_ A weak grimace slides through my face. I'm... yeah, I'm losing it, fast. _And... Heh, be nice to Rupert, while you're at it. Be nice to him for once._

He tosses back one bewildered, hurt stare after another, charging forward at least slightly with each turn. But we all know what weighs more heavily, and anyways, I'm stuck, and even when I do collapse it'll just be into a medal. So I'll be fine.

Besides... he needs to stop brushing that poor tricera off. He'd never admit it, but anyone with eyes—or just anyone in general— _Reyna_ knows, too—can tell that it's upsetting him. Oh, Trikko... oh, all of them...

With the smashing of my bones I feel it coming and I hold my breath as all of my aching dissolves into one tiny droplet of matter, a little glowing medal. And I stay there, holding my breath, waiting, thinking of _her_ , of _living_ , of whatever comes next in a nonsensical sort of joy for some heightened number of seconds until it all goes spiraling into blackness.

I'm so happy...

 **Ahhh, those were... ahh I'm so happy xD**

 **I couldn't completely focus when I got to the end, where Dina FINALLY comes back and Rupert's there with her, I just... I got so happy ;;w;; I was like YOU DID IT! Hahaha...**

 **Zoazoa finally came to terms with herself and everything she'd caused. Wonder what that's gonna lead to next chapter, with all the loose ancients still around, not to mention Rupert's dad?**

 **Hahaha... wonder what's gonna happen next chapter, huh xD Who do you think's gonna get the POV this time? (haha, if you look at the last three... it's a little obvious)**

 **oh heck I'm so giddy hahahaha**


	38. Do: That One Reprieve Happens

**Ahh, here it is... the last heavy, like super intense chapter of... of this whole series... (the last few chapters are more aftermath/resolution, this is the end of the climax, unless you'd consider that last chapter it, haha)...**

 **I keep bringing it up but... but that's just because it feels _so_ weird to be finishing the series, what, three and a half years later (I started December 2013, for all who don't remember, haha, so... yeah that's like three and a half...) ahhhh it's sorta depressing...**

 **Why was it easier to finish literally everything else I wrote... gahh Dino stop making me feelsy**

 **Dino: haha what in the world**

 **Jkonna: pffffff Dino making you feelsy? He's a big diga-derp tho**

 **Dino: pff yeah**

 **Jkonna: really big diga-derp**

 **Dino: hahaha, yeha, but you also are Jkkie**

 **Jkonna: only sometimes**

 **Dino: only always**

 **Jkonna: mmmost of the time**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 38: That One Reprieve Happens

 _Dino_

My hair's soaked; we've gone through that many foggy clouds. Chilling to the touch. Doesn't take all that long for breath to come out white. That makes me nervous, but only marginally nervous, because it doesn't exactly sink in, the whole concept Joe's prattling over: big yucky snow island, ancient outbreak, my sister's who even knows where.

I think, vaguely, it's all too much for me. Passes right through my terrible attention span, thick black strands of hair whipping around with my face as I shove in as much of the mountainous region gawking up at us as I can. So much snow. Jkonna is definitely not listening, because Jkonna, and Raptin... well, I'd say he is, but I can barely hear Joe from where I an, the wind snatching his breath before his voice flavors it, so there's no way he gets any of it, at least not as much as I do.

At this point I must be stretched thin, like ice, like all that ice we're getting ourselves into up there: once I do swallow everything our new western buddy's selling us, things won't be pretty. It's best not to put too much thought into it, lest I crack already. That would... That would not be very much fun. And I do manage it, in tiny chunks, just glancing over the whole aspect of everything I'm about to get into, but not enough to mean much outside of the screaming in my head of _SISTER SISTER SISTER SISTER_ in this voice obnoxiously similar to Droplet's.

But it couldn't be her. She's gone deadly quiet, cold quiet, in this stale, unnatural way that suggests she didn't go off on her own. Lone too—my tiny nasaur freakishly silent is not something easy to comprehend, what with her nonstop chatter. Iggy and Thomas, being the not all that lovely ancients they are, stay moderately soft, if speaking at all, and Harei's still a nervous wreck so I can't say much about her.

I skirt the topic— _him_ in my head as we dive in, snowy sharp edges glossy with white and humungous clouds that stretch farther along the horizon than my eyes can see, the thought of the _other_ one, the one I sometimes consider with this awkward, lumpy heart and try to think about, but not too hard, just in case... in case it hurts too much. Something. Preparation. Right? Just... Just in case. Just to be safe.

Rainbow pelts of scales shimmer, collecting in size as we pull in, more and more vibrant, some like fire and others like—like _weak_ fires and others like really— _strong_ fires and too many more shades than names. Hunched old figures, like Iggy's grandma, if he had one. Actually, maybe he does have one. I don't think it's something I wanna consider, though.

My fingers brace around Mith's slick hide. Joe mutters western gibberish, "Saddle up" or "Whoa, Nellie" or whatever the heck it is, his teeth gritted, his curly hair flying. It's a miracle that gigantic hat of his hasn't flown off his head. He must've attached it. I swear, I've been half-ducking this entire trip in the hopes that it wouldn't donk my face when it finally let off. But fluttery and stubborn and so mysterious it's kind of ugly, there it stays.

What a ridiculous hat. Pff—it's... it's like _hers—_ like—like _Rosie's_. Oh, geez, that hat was an accident waiting to happen. If not me, I'm sure someone would've done her a favor and stole it from her, toss it off wherever it... Oh, right, it's still... It's still under my bed in the Hotel. The one I used to live in... before I knew about my dad, my—my sister. Raptin. Anyone.

Well, no, that's not completely true. I knew Rosie, obviously. And... Jkonna too. Sort of.

Did they ever find her hat? Well. It'd be doing _all_ of us a favor of they didn't.

I could see that guy—what was his name?—the Hotel owner—man, the Hotel had some fancy name too, fancy like _his_ , but it's long passed my memory—I could see him, like, searching out my room after I vacated and all, finding that dusty old cap under the bed, staring at it like what kind of an utter weirdo leaves a perfectly ugly hat lying around under his bed.

Something about the hat and Rosie and Vivosaur Island leaves me solemn; by the time Mith lands, I've gone still. We're all shifting, limbs and hair and clothes rubbing all against one another as we depart from the ptera. Gentle, she; a quiet spirit. I like her. A part of me wishes my vivosaurs were all peaceful like that, but then I remember that they sort of are right now, and that puts a foul taste in my mouth so I stop thinking about it.

Hot, frantic breaths puff out of Jkonna. She darts off of Mith and goes sprawling into the nearest pile of snow. Probably tripped over a rock. I catch the perpetrator gleaming casually over by an outstretched foot with a bit of a scrape around the heel. Funny enough, it's stoic and at-least-I-thought-towards- _her_ apathetic Raptin that goes after her and pulls her miserable face out of the slush. I do wonder about it, for like half a second, and then it's back to the snow, the slowly inclining hill, the knot of ancients just ahead.

Joe glances over at my friends. A shadow of a smile hovers over his face, and I swear it's like he's about to... cry. But the moment passes and he moves on quickly. It sent my heart pulsing enough that I still could feel it, still could see it, still remembered it, just that little shadow of a second. Almost an afterthought.

After her recovery, Jkonna lopes up around by me: half out of breath, her cheeks wet. "Hey, uh..." Her head's sort of cocked. Flaming bangs spill over her eyes. She tries to blink them out and eventually gives up. "You okay? Dino?" To my curt nod, her lip turns. "Diga... I'm just..." Then she's solemn too and I feel terrible. "Just... You look sad, or nervous... something. Which... Which I guess makes sense, but...

A soft sigh draws out. "Man! We've covered who knows how far we went in some not super long amount of time! I can't even hecking tell, since it's all diga-dark out and stuff!" She pulls her hands behind her head, smiling gruesomely at the sky. "All your fault, stupid... sun."

"Oh. Hah..." Please don't bring that up. "Now I'm all bashful, Jkkie... what're you trying to do to me..." I raise a hand and tousle her hair and she swipes at me.

"Heh! So you diga-do remember." Her voice goes soft. "It feels like it was forever ago, even though it... wasn't." There she pauses. "Hey! You can't accuse me of _anything_! _You're_ the one who turned _me_ sentimental, you... digadig!"

So I turn, a shadow falling over the stupid smile on my face. "Yeah, you're probably right." Then I turn back and stick out my tongue. "But only maybe."

A grin pulls at her lip. It doesn't go super far, doesn't crinkle around her eyes, doesn't light up her face. Quiet, solemn, like freaking everything out here. It's still a smile though. "Only mmmmaybe! How... diga-dare you!" But her voice is quiet again, her eyes following the fresh patch of footprints—Joe's—leading up ahead. He's not much farther up, but his shadow streaks along and cruises straight through us, elongating like a tail from his body.

It's a small hill, the one that dips out into the clearing. Where the wreck is: shimmering scales strewn about here and humps of sauropods over there, spurts of blood casually mingling into the snow, forming it more a dreamy pink than anything else. My stomach clenches at that... Not that I can turn around. Not this far. Not really. If I did... well. I'm not... _that_ callous... _that_ stupid.

That weak. I-I don't think. Heh... I don't want to think.

Raptin hovers off just behind us, like he usually does, but oddly enough he's not on my side, like, well, _forever_ , but... more on Jkkie's. I get the idea to incline my head in his general direction, crack a smile, narrow my eyes her way. Let's just say that the sudden rousing of blush on her cheeks isn't exactly what I was going for, or, uh, expected at all. When she screws up her lip and forcefully shakes her head, I leave it at that. Of course, there's more important things to do her—

 _like explaining the existence of that conveniently-located seismo_.

Something falls out of my mouth and Raptin winces and Jkonna gasps and I have absolutely no idea what I said, my head goes black, my tongue goes dry, I nearly hurl but then my stomach suddenly remembers that I don't have anything in there to hurl and it's just this awful gag reflex that leaves an even fouler taste in my mouth—and then I'm running. Running, running, eyes wide, lungs scratchy, totally crying, absolutely, until my face slams into a stout leg and then I actually am, biting on my tongue and everything. Drawing blood is a certainty. What a... musty tang. Ullhhh.

Of course, that is completely unimportant.

 _PIPPY PIPPY PIPPY PIPPY PI—_

 _DINO?!_ This terribly shrill voice, his accent killing it. _DI—DIIINOOO!_

We would've probably gotten farther had the spooky girl with the bubblegum hair not snagged my shoulder and wrenched me back. Blazing emerald eyes burn into my skin. "Who the _fuck_ are you," she mutters in this sort of greeting that suggests I don't lie and also answer as soon as possible. The words choke me up at my throat and I so nearly—I so nearly say it and then I lose it and my face flushes.

Scary girl with the long bubblegum hair wrenches me back a bit more, her eyes furious. It doesn't get me to talk any faster and she stops. We stay like that, staring wildly at each other, like beasts, like fantastical monsters from another world who just happened to cross paths and had no idea whatsoever about the existence of the other, and I'm not sure how long this goes on for.

Eventually, I find my voice, and that's when it stops. "I—I'm, that's—that, uh... I'm..." And I realize I can't say it. My mouth screws up and my eyes widen faintly and a weak smile twists at my lip and I realize that I can't say it. "I'm someone... someone, um... very important to Dina."

I guess that works because she lets go of my shoulder soon after.

"I diga-dunno why the hell you're here but if you're on her side you may as well be on ours." Stepping back, she tosses her massive wad of wavy hair over a shoulder, her dark skin catching a shaft of light and shining with sweat. "So, uh." A thumb goes to her chest. "I'm Pauleen, diga. That over there"—a hand over toward the other direction, where some really spooky-faced blonde lies—"is diga-Dinu. I suggest you diga-don't go in that area unless we're sure we have a good hand on her uncle." _Um_. That... _Uhhmmm_.

I get one good glance in that Dinu girl's direction: this terrifying patchwork of feelings stiches her expression together and leaves me numb. There's blunt anger and hard, hot, hot frustration eking out of her fingers that twitch and trial to get a good grip on—on _something_. And then beneath all that, a soft quilt of feelings... Guilt, regret.

And apparently that's all the time we get. A tail suddenly whams out of nowhere on top of the girl and she crumbles to her knees before standing up so quickly it's like she never fell in the first place. It's there that lines, welted and bleeding openly, layers upon layers of hard red lines, become visible to me and I can't help it and I think I gasp, spit wadding up in my mouth and ew—ew— _ewww_...

Her head tilts in my direction. With a swift hand she nabs my wrist and yanks me her way.

 _WHUMMMMMN._

A... foot. J-Just behind me.

I think it scraped my tail some. I feel... something throbbing... relentless, poring out a thin streak of wet, I... ahhhh... Gah, that _stings_...

Pippy whimpers and it's like a signal; out my medals go, my hand still outstretched and shaking from where I flung them... flung them hard. My krona's much faster than she probably should be, and stars poke out of my vision where they must fluctuate in hers, but it's not like she cares. In seconds she's by the seismo's side and absolutely screaming his name. Our dear Pippy.

There's a funny depth to his purple gaze... maturity, growth, something. He's quiet when he tells her, _Later—Later, dear lassie. There are much more serious conducts to consider now._

Something follows... I-I know that, but my head's throbbing so hard that it's... that I can't really focus on them... and then the white wonderland around me wallops down on top and I go spinning into the snow with a soft _SSSFFFT_. It's cold. Bites at my lip, numbs my cheeks cold. And quiet—a burning quiet like falling into the ocean, down, down, down until I muster the strength to lift back up again.

Oof. Yeah, my tail is bleeding. I can feel frosty currents gut it up and... and it tickles, this ominous wet tickling sensation. N-Not something I wanna go through... kinda need to scratch it, I—I—ahhhhh—I feel that spot between my eyes pinch.

 _Dino! Would thou cease acting the fool thy plays?_ Oh. Now Iggy's mad again. _Adhere, dim one!_ What? I swear, he's so... and my _head_ is so... his words are just... _To my side! Look at this squikwash! How foul, how foul! May it perish beneath its murky filth! Yes, perish!_ His hot voice grows hotter, louder. _DINO, I SAY! TO MY SIDE!_

For all of his efforts, he receives a nice, cold grimace. _Yeah, yeah._ I waddle over toward him, my feet mostly dragging big ruts through the snow. It's hard enough to focus on walking. Lifting and... maneuvering... ulh, I feel my spit catch in my throat thinking of it alone... and now I'm all clammy and... ugghhhh... Man, ancients are awfu—

"What the hell was that." Oh _gosh_ when did _pinky the second_ come back. "What the _hell_ is—" One of her long, dark fingers risks lifting and pointing out the arc Thomas's gigantic ice neck cuts into the horizon. "You! Boy!" Me. "What is the diga- _deal_ with your vivosaurs?" Oh. Oh, that's it?

This flat grin struggles over my face. "They're not vivosaurs." She twitches back at that, her emerald eyes searing. Pauleen, is it? Yeah. There's something about the squat jaw and the harsh lines and the... the dark skin that seriously reminds me of someone... "Ancients, duh. You think you'd recognize them, what with all the racket around here. Heh."

Her mouth twitches at that. I can't say whether she's mad or not. She kinda resembles the kinda person who'd be constantly mad. Maybe she _is_... ullhhh. That blonde girl—Dinu, or whatever—she's gotta be that kinda person. Her scrunched face is so fierce and so overused that it's practically faded into her expression, worn and normal like old comforting clothes, or maybe _someone certain's hat_. "No..! That's... That's impossible! You can't just _own_ ancients like that!" Her low, deadly voice raises octaves and that just makes it even more deadly, oh gosh.

"U-Ummm..." I blush. C-Can't help it. "We-Well obviously it is! Because Thomas and Iggy are, well, frigi and igno! _The_ ancients! And I... revived them! I... I did. And they go in medals now. Like... Like any vivosaur, I guess. Which is... weird, but... but, well..." The way her face erratically shifts and diverts in search of potential hazards in the middle of our conversation distracts me; my voice dies out right beneath my tongue. Her mouth twitches at that, too. Man, Pauleen's really spooky.

"Di-Diga-dammit, I guess..." The eyes softer, foggy. "I guess... that stupid moel was right, huh. Lemo..."

Oh geez. I don't even get a chance to say anything there; a certain ball of fiery hair and brown limbs barrels into my side. That's all it takes, huh: one single mention of that guy's name and there she is. "We diga-don't talk about Lemo! Get it right, Pauleen!" she shoots off in her harsh, unruly tone, and then I glance back at my best friend and up at Pauleen and back down at the first again and I remember, _oh_ , that's right. Pauleen... is Jkonna's sister. Her younger sister—But she... but she doesn't know it. And she shouldn't. To keep her safe. Digadig rituals and superstitions... not to mention everything Jkonna's done...

When I glance back down at her, orange hair, small stature, sharp nose, thrashing... for a second my breath catches and I see my sister—or what my sister might be—in her. And then I look back, at—at _Pauleen—_ at the taller of the two, erect, grimacing, her height a good few inches beneath mine but still—but still closer than me than almost anyone else's and I... and I... and I see in her ignorance—

 _DINO, BY MY SIDE! WE CANNOT HOLD OUT AGAINST THESE PATHETIC MONGRELS WITHOUT SOME LEVEL OF ASSISTANCE!_

Oop. There's—There goes my head, spinning all over again...

Quickly accompanied by a colder, sharper tone. _Dino, don't worry about us. Iggy is... reacting violently to... something strange—there is something sinister about these ancients, something... wrong with them, I daresay. You do note that they hardly contain any sort of physical state like myself and my boyfriend here, yes?_ Thomas was always the bold one.

But I... I do see it. Once I'm able to relax again and glance back out, he's... right. There's these forms... yeah, and when Droplet snatches at one or Lone tries to pummel through another, they pass... into the figure and don't quite hit it, or at least hurt it, as far as I can tell. And then there's Thomas with his gigantic whip of a tail, ice shattering and obliterating any poor ancient that decides to trundle on into his area.

My teeth sink into my lip. _Nnnh... That doesn't... That's so weird._

 _It is, yes? They're... withering, it seems. Withering, yes? Iggy?_

Iggy doesn't have much to say. His voice comes off all hot and reluctant. He's pretty embarrassed. _Ye-Yes, perhaps so..._ which we all know means an affirmative, as freaking unsure as he sounds, that weirdo.

S-So that's it, then. We stumble on into this scene of people being picked off and plucked at by powerless... monsters. Like the shadows on the walls, like the wind in the dark, like the sounds under the bed as the springs shift... They're like—like ghosts. Like ghosts.

Then my eyes just so happen to land on the puddle of entity that is the creature Dinu's holding down.

If I was hungry seconds ago... my stomach's gone cold. Mad gashes and gurgling and... and a gripping face sharp and hard and shadowed and fragmented and—and—and _empty_ , so... so empty, so lost, so vengeful, so needy, so... empty. I mumble the word over cracked lips and my... my heart's so weak I can hardly feel it in my chest.

He resembles someone else I know. Someone... all the way on Vivosaur Island, so while their faces merge and they're practically the same person, I'm sorting this out and I... and I know this isn't Bullwort, but memories hit me like stones all the same: the agony, the—the pain, the loneliness, that... terror. He just went _crazy_ and now... So... empty. So very empty, I... I feel lost staring into that cracked face, like a vase strewn on the floor, the flowers scattered and dying and this is—this is... sad.

Sparkling bits of cut and simmering ancients play in between the contours of his face: long, lean, his figure way less built than Bullwort's. This guy's nothing like a policeman... nothing like a hero, even a pretend one like Bullwort, uh, _sort_ of was. But there's that same look, that same long-suffering stare, the same reworking smile that flickers in at all the wrong moments.

Ancients, too. Still. A-And I don't... I don't really know how to feel about that.

I still remember that face Bullwort made, that strong and overbearing and thick and unhealthy smile glazed over him, beneath the mustache. Not much of a variation from the fight at the BB Base to his attempted, uh, "control" over Thomas which way hurt more than helped him. And that's what—that's what I see now. That's what I see in this wild man's expression, that's all I can see.

Joe'd gone down and taken Pauleen up to his side at some point. She's... sobbing a little, luminescent tears streaking down her mucky face. P-Poor girl. I-I can't say when, I wasn't... paying attention to them whatsoever. Raptin took to my best friend's side and helped her out of a slouch somewhere too. I'm standing, without a stoop, without a single strand of thought on me, just standing and staring at the mess of this man, this man I don't even know and yet I... I almost do. Or at least, I... think I can understand what he's going through.

Y-Yeah. Like... Bullwort.

All these ancients, these shiny fragments of things that once were... It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I have to wrench my gaze off of it, of all of it. My ancients, _my_ powers, so easily overtake the scene and wipe the floor with what shards remain, and it's getting harder to breathe, glancing back at the people and the crying and... my friends, the ones I came with, there they are supporting each other.

Jkonna points out the girl who used to be her sister. It's... weird, different, watching a gentle cloud wrap around Raptin's face, watching him lean closer to her, try to strengthen her, to... comfort her, his lips softly moving by her ear. It's... so weird. H-How long did they start being like— _H-How long did it take me to notice_?

I can't say how long I'd stand there, helpless. How long I would've stayed there if nothing went out of their way to beckon me, like a beacon, away from my little spot in the middle I'd started to wear down with pacing.

But a new figure, another person, hardly shorter than me, height matching much closer than Duna's or anyone's ever has—a new figure turns up around the corner of the mountain. Up, up, these golden eyes flickering amongst the snowy wreckage like he's been here, done that before. Pink hair floating in the wind, figure hunching into layers of sweaters that cause me to shiver thinking of how freaking unprepared we are, the whole lot of us.

This... expertise, I guess. Something about it wakes me up and when the guy turns and inclines his head to me, all like, _hey, what'cha doing here_ , before I know it I pull up after.

We're seriously almost the same height. I should stop getting so giddy about this, it's a little shameful.

"Ha—Hah, ahh... uhhhh, who're you?"

He sort of curls his lip. "Shouldn't I be asking that?" Not a mean sort of lip curl though. More... curious. He just comes off as harmless, even with his wisdom gently coating his face. Spikes my heart, that. Oh heck me.

"No, but..." I sputter, "But! But... But I asked first, so I get to ask it!" Solid reasoning, that there. Oh yeah. Totally.

There's something... infectious, about the light in his eye. Almost like it hasn't been there awhile or... or something. That's kind of weird. "Mier. I'm Mier." Oh. Okay then. Not Dina. Well I guess that's obvious since this is a boy—and there's no tail or anything—but... even so... "Now who are you, mister... uhhhh"—his eyes trailing my figure—"guy with scales?"

He's not all harsh and stuff like Pauleen... I-I think I kinda like that. Oh, no. "D-Dino! Dino." Let's not talk about the possible attractiveness of the eyes. Or the earrings for that matter. I wish earrings didn't suddenly make this person like a billion percent more attractive. I think I am going to die now. "You, uhhhh, 'mister' is, uhhh, not exactly—I—I mean, we're like... the same age... sorta." Sort of? Right?

"Pshhh..." Mier's fast to laugh. Nnnnnot like I like that either. That's _crazy_. In m-my defense, I can relate to that. Not sure what that amounts to, but it's a thing, and it exists, so anyways. "Actually, I'm basically over two thousand years old. See, this ancient possessed me, didn't really age... it's complicated."

Oh, if we're gonna go _that_ way... "Well actually, that makes _me_ older." His pink-tinged eyebrows practically jump off his face. "Try two million. Er. Give or take. Ish." I can't tell whether his face is that of disbelief or disgust. This is getting uncomfortable fast. "I'm just saying! I'm just... so like, I was in stone sleep, frozen—kinda like anti-aging—for, like, for two million years or maybe fifty million, not like I could keep track then, so I—so I like... so... uh."

Why am I so terrible at this.

Well at least Mier's curious. Not, uh, crude or anything. That would suck. "Stone... sleep? Huh, I've never heard of that before, and I, well... I know a lot of things, I'd like to say."

"Oh! Well not this! Not your fault, though. It's... kinda weird." He-Here goes. "So we showed up awhile ago cuz our planet got wrecked I guess, anyways long story short I'm a dinaurian, this is completely normal, and my sister got stuck over here? Di"—I blush again—this is getting nowhere— _come on Dino—_ "D-Dina! That's... my sister. Dina."

His eyes sort of pop out.

" _Di_ na? Oh, dang..." Shaking his head slowly. Pink streaks of hair—this mess of long and short all bouncing together in a disheveled wave. "Wow, we never thought... hah, wow... We-Well then again! I don't know her. It's... them who do." Turning back to face the whole Pauleen thing, and the Joe guy and...

Hey. Thomas... His shoulders have eased up. There's not such a large cluster of ancients around here anymore. And I... I think I can make out the fogs up ahead, surrounding the mountain peak in a veil... thinning. Is that—Is that a person? Two? Three? No, No, nothing more than two, if even. Maybe it's nothing, but it... it seems to shift and peel off of the snowy top, moving downward, toward us...

Over near my ancients, that Dinu girl's gotten off of the man who was so intent on... destruction. He's... a puddle of a person now. Just kind of sitting there. Broken. I-I really don't know what to do to that. It—It makes me nervous, staring back at it. Like at any moment that head'll lift and stare me right down and... I-I don't know. L-Like Bullwort, I guess. That's getting to be a little too much of an excuse.

I never find out if that head lifts because Mier casually bumps my shoulder and I like get the feeling he doesn't quite understand what a personal space is. I don't really mind, but... you know... "How did you get the ancients, Dino?" His voice is husky, quiet when he asks it. It makes his prior tone really stand out in my head: honeyed, warm... sort of stuffy with this slight accent it trips over now and then. "You probably haven't heard, but... there used to be some crazy ancient here too. Only we didn't capture it or anything like you did." Heh. Oh, Thomas and Iggy. What a mess. "Dina—I guess... Dina like trounced it or something? I dunno. I wasn't there myself. The others, though; they only talked about it all the time.

"Sssso..." Ouch. That glance is suspicious. Geez, I-I didn't do anything. "Can you do that too, Dino? Is... that why your, uh, your sister was able to defeat some crazy like Zongazonga so easily and you... well, you not only found some ancients—however you did that—and then... revived them? You guys are... different?"

I blush. "Heh. I-I wouldn't... call it so different. We just, like, preceded all life on earth." Now he's looking at me weird again. "It—It's complicated. I don't think it's that weird though... But I guess maybe. A little bit."

And Mier officially can't stop looking at me like my head is about to explode or maybe just did.

"A little bit," he mutters in this quiet sliver of his usual tone. And then despite himself he bursts into laughter. "Daaang! What _are_ y'all?" Oh, that's where the accent pokes in. Alright then. It's kind of funny-sounding, actually. "You... _dinorans_ " _—_ oh my gosh _no_ we're _not_ dinorans why can _nobody_ get it right I bet _Lemo_ told them, that dolt—"Y'all are crazy! But, like... a coolish crazy! It's... mmmh... it's something else. Not like I mind or anything, though..." Oh hey, maybe all those funny stares were a mask to the blush on _his_ face. Man, _dang_ indeed.

We stay quiet then, for a little while. Mier's gaze glimmers as it swivels over the rest of the people in the area, like he's counting them off in his head. Somewhere he stops and stares off to the horizon where nobody lies. He's just quiet, then, just sort of quiet. Musing. A small touch of frustration kindles little fluctuating pieces of his face, eyebrows, lips. But I don't ask and he doesn't answer.

Somebody else does. _DINOOOOOOOOOOO! DINO, LOOOOOOK! ALL THE ANCIENTS WENT HOME TO HE—_

Oh no— _LONE DON'T SAY THAT, THAT'S LIKE, TOO MANY LEVELS OF NO!_ Oh my gosh. What is she doing here. But either way, there goes my nasaur, traipsing up toward us and rubbing her thick, purple face against my leg like this is something she does every time she sees me.

 _Buhhh. S'all... silent now. 's weird. We gonna go home yet? Rosie's not around. Or anyone. Or your sissy._

Mier starts. "That's your—"

"Hehhehhh, sorry, she's pretty crude," I mumble. Just to prove it, some creepy squawking noise turns up in her throat. That's just _lovely_ , Lone. "But, uh. Yeah. She's my nasaur. Lone."

Lone's head flops up at that, her gigantic teal gaze focusing on the boy beside me. _OH! A STRANGER! DINO, YOU MADE FRIENDS WITH A STRANGER! DOES THE STRANGER HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WHERE ALL THE ANCIENTS WENT? THOMMY AND IGGIGG SAID IT WASN'T THEIR FAULT THEY ALL WENT AWAY! SOME OF THEM WERE ACTUALLY ALMOST SORTA FORMIDABLE OR NOT MEAN BUT THEY ALL NOPED OUT!_

Mier's eyes go wide. "She talks a lot."

 _My gosh, Lone. Would you chill? I can't understand what the heck you mean when you get all... yourself like that._ Turning back to Mier, I shrug. "Yeah, she talks a lot. Usually it's not that bad... eh."

His eyes are glassy, staring back at the puny nasaur with a little too much lung. He murmurs something but it's without a voice so I can't begin to tell what it is. When he reaches—hesitantly—out a hand, Lone gets all stupid excited and races around it and leaps in the attempt to get him to pet her. So Mier does. There's a strange sense of wonderment in his gaze as he does.

She decides not to settle down enough before trying again. _I SAAAAID ALL THE ANCIENTS GOT NOPED OUT EVEN THOUGH THOMMY AND IGGIGG DIDN'T NOPE OUT A LOT OF THEM! THEY'RE NOT, NOT, NOT OMNIPRESENT BUT IT HAPPENED ANYWAYS!_

Well, that's good enough. I think I... get it. But if I do, I... That's kind of odd. _Really?_ Wait, duh.

 _YESSS, REALLY!_ she caws, _YESSS, DUH!_

Soon after, my others are attracted over to the general area. _Yeah, you saw it?_ Droplet's regained the majority of her voice. Not an easy feat with all that... screaming earlier, geez. _Things just started floating off into oblivion or something! It was not a pretty sight! I'm almost... worried! But we can't even hear them, so I don't know._

 _O-Ohhh..._ And there's Harei. Crying. Of course. _Th-That's really sad! That's... reeaaaally saaad! Whhhhhh... really really sad..._

 _Ye-Yes indeed... I-It is no trifling thought to pu-put in one's head... I do wonder where all of them went, the go-od and th-the bad eggs..._ Oh, Pippy. His accent fractures around him as he stumbles through his words.

I think Mier is dumbfounded by my sheer weight of vivosaurs. There's the golden ourano, sobbing incomprehensible nonsense, and Pippy stooped over near her with this anxious stare in his gaze, Droplet on his other side, Lone hurtling back to them. Thomas and Iggy haven't moved, though; they've always been... ambiguous like that.

"So many," he mumbles. "Heh... So many of—" He glances back at Pippy, a sharp jab. "Wait a second! That's the seismo that came with Rupert! What the heck is it doing here?"

Oh. Oh, gosh, someone else didn't take Pippy with them... did they? "Y-Yeah, but... Pippy's mine. We lost him awhile ago but... Pippy's mine. He's... This is his... um..." I smile at the sodden ground. "This is his family, you know? Of... course he'd wanna come back." Of course...

And I don't know if Mier has any idea what to say to that. So we're quiet again.

Some of the others start to gather around us too. Jkonna takes my side, sort of doffing her head at the pinkette—pffff, _pinky the third_. Raptin's to the other; he stares intently heavenward, where that—that figure was. Joe and Pauleen, the latter waving shyly at Mier. Dinu, even. She keeps her hands in her pockets and slouches and sullenly stares at the ground the entire time. I do _not_ go outta my way to tal to _her_ , no. And there's other vivosaurs too, wounded and mostly unhurt and one, this smilo, is mottled in scratches varying of length—l-like Pauleen.

There's a story in those eyes of his, the smilo's. A really freaking intense one, with lots of—of _blood_ and stuff. B-But it ends triumphant with something about the blonde girl and I try to focus on that instead.

Pauleen works over to Mier's side and whispers in a hushed sort of anger, "Where the hell are Todd and Lu—"

"I wish I knew." He brushes the spooky girl off easily. There's a sort of connection between them, a gentleness to their actions that suggests they've been through something together. Recently, too. "Remember? They went down the other path, and then that got destroyed, and... you don't think they were hurt or... or the mountain got—" but he breaks himself off, then.

He doesn't know. He can't, I guess.

Pauleen's silently fuming and I waltz over there and go, "Soo, you want me to send my ancients down there to... uh, to search for them?" They'd... probably fare best out of anyone. I mean, _ancients_.

She glares back at me, but it dissolves quickly. She sucks in a breath, tousles her head, sighs. "That's... well, yeah, sure, digadig. Tell them to look for a couple of shorter guys, a brunette in a diga-dress and a _blue_ nette with these ridiculous goggles on his head. That's... That's them. Todd and Luk. They got... lost. Sorta."

I try at a smile and then turn around and give up. It doesn't take long to relay everything to my ancients, who quickly dip off into the mountain below.

Huh. It's... like, now that the weight of the ancients, the battling, everyone... now that it's all lessened I almost feel dizzy again, lightheaded. Can't focus, can't think... my heart jumping in my chest. Hard. Trepidation: they're all waiting for it, for something, and I guess now I am too, now all of us are, even if we just showed up and have no idea what's really going on. Like... _here_ it is. But then it's like, here _what_ is?

And that's the thing. I don't know; Jkkie doesn't know...

Breathing in the same air as them, feeling the faint taste of blood in my mouth, watching the snowy skies get thinner, and thinner, until a waning sun pokes out of a pocket. I'm... shaking, a little. From cold, from fear, from the terrible silence that nobody really knows how to fill outside of small jabs of whispers. Nothing solid. My brain picks up on _sun_ and nearly goes down that track of how _stupid_ the freaking _sun_ is, and oh my gosh I almost lose it there and then.

Not quite, though. Not... yet.

The figure continues down the mountain: slowly, methodically. As it comes into view I can determine that yeah, it's a person, but only hardly; they've hunched so carefully over something in their arms that their silhouette hardly resembles something, someone. I wonder what's so... precious?

My eyes dart over it and I catch the tail and I catch the scales and I'm running then, through vivosaurs, through people, through everyone, and I feel someone else on my heels— _Raptin_. Oh, of course, of _course_ he saw it too, of _course_ he's here too. Relief sheds off of me in waves as we stop in front of the person, the—the boy. A silvery-haired head raises and these fierce, saffron eyes gouge into me.

I glance back, searching, because where's the tail, the scales, the figure I swear I could recognize when my eyes burn about him and—and—and—

Oh.

He's holding her.

He's... _holding_ her. For a second it's all I can do just to stare.

Such a... small girl. Curled up into his arms, into his body, nuzzled into something that, on her serene little face could only amount to... safety. Curls of soft, soft orange hair frame her face, trailing down her back, her little white and silvery body sparkling in the touch of sunlight. The fluttery eyes, so close to opening and yet so impossibly closed, stir some feeling in my heart, some feeling I haven't thought about in so long that I feel a trill of—of fear—or maybe love or—or _something_ , I-I don't even _know_ what, just that it's _new_ and _scary_ and _wonderful_ and... Dina.

Those burning, saffron irises scald over me and I know he detects our scales, our tails, my angular form, the long nose and head and that _orange_ so similar to my sister's... and his lip gently twists as he fights a fleeting streak of fear in his face.

Fear? Dude, he's so... like... The heart-shaped face, the soft lips, the chin-length hair and the rounded nose, it... well dang if... if...

Then I realize I know this face. I've seen these features before displayed in the very same way: hiding fear. Though never had it been so... evident as right now, huh.

Raptin sort of elbows me and I start, blushing: "Wh-Who are you?" And then he elbows me again but I'm actually losing my mind right now, if _you_ have something to say then _you_ say it, but he doesn't.

I think I know who this is, who _he_ is, but of course I just _have_ to ask anyways.

The boy stiffens. A visible, palpable curl of fear peels out from him. "My... name is Rupert." Yeah... I do know him. Wh-What a soft voice... His grip tightens around my sister. "Have... y-you come to take her?"

Oh. _Oh_. That's why he—

"N-No, I! No... Ahhh..." Oh, gosh, oh, _gosh_... C _'mon_ , Raptin _do_ something but Raptin _doesn't_. Ahhhhh... "I'm—I... I just, I..." Oh, no, now he's getting sort of upset, this is... ahhh, _Raptin_... But Raptin _doesn't_...

It all tumbles out, an outrageous flood of words. "P-Please don't get all nervous! I know you! I mean—like—like, ahhhh— _you_ used to go to the orphanage! And I used to _be_ at the orphanage and I-I-I _know_ I don't look it but that's because I didn't know who I was back then! It's... ahh, it's...

Raptin's hand quietly intercepts his head. I can't tell what he's thinking. Probably shame. "I..." Losing steam, ah... "I... I knew you. Sort of. Not really, but I... I kind of... knew you. You're so... You're different now." I'm blushing. Dang it, _whatever_. "That's... That's fine, I just... um...

"M-My name is... Dino. I'm her brother." I bite at my lip, my eyes... my eyes wet. "Sorry. She-She's not even awake I guess so you don't have much to... go off of and I know I sound crazy but I... I'm her brother, and I forgot about her and everything a long time ago and I... I haven't seen her in so many years and I just finally remembered everything and I..." My voice cracks. Oof. "I... miss her. It took so long to get here, I..."

I'm out of words. I've gone dry.

Raptin sort of nudges me. This really stupid smile comes up on my face and then it turns out I have a couple more. "S-Soooo hi."

And I try at a wave, and I feel sort of stupid, but I also sort of don't. It's... a hard feeling to pinpoint, like this... big rock in my throat. My face is hot and I'm smiling really stupidly and Raptin can't look at me straight or he has to stifle giggles, I look so hilariously stupid.

Rupert recognizes the fact that I'm not a threat and relaxes. It's... a weird look on someone like him. Like... _Rupert_. Child prodigy. His dad used to make him visit the orphanage and everything. He's a hazy memory, a ghost of a kid, pale and shy and deathly quiet. Gentle, though. Always gentle. My sister, cradled in his arms, her fingers knit tightly around his neck—heck, he's carrying her _bridal_ style.

If that's not an indicator...

He's still pale. Still shy. Still... quiet. But he musters something in him that wasn't there back when we were kids, a sort of color to his cheeks as he glances up at me, into my eyes, and he murmurs in this soft, soft lilt, "She... does not remember you. She lost her memory a long time ago." Pause. There's this strain in his face. Holy _turd_ I think he believes me. Oh my gosh. "Like... you did, I suppose. Y-You... look like her brother as well." Shy gaze flecking over mine.

Then he finds Raptin. Meandering over good old Rapty, let's just say he doesn't recognize a family resemblance like he did me. The stiffness returns, his body jolting into place. "A-And you?" Glancing nervously, hurriedly, between Dina and Raptin like they're—like they're—

Oh, _man_ , if only Jkkie could see _this_.

Raptin's cheeks immediately swell purple. "I—" Whatever tact his stern voice once held has gone missing. _Hmm_ , wonder _why_. "N-No! That is not—n-no!" Oh, Raptin. Now he's staring at me, like he needs _me_ to help _him_... but dang it, he didn't do me any favors earlier. Let me live, Rapty. "I... no, we—well, perhaps my family once considered it when we were younger but I—That is—That is not a consideration of present."

I barge in. "He's family, so it'd be weird if—"

"Ss _hhh_ hhush, Dino, I am _not_ fami—"

"Nuh-uh! Rapty, you're an idiot and that's final!"

There are no colors past purple his cheeks can go, and he's already there, so the hue just sort of gets more intense, more diverse, an even further depth of violet skirting through his flesh at a rapid pace. His entire face has pretty much universally reached this color.

It's all he can do to lid his eyes and scowl out of the corner of his lip: " _Di_ no. Such an _in_ solent little—" He reaches over and ferociously tousles my hair, and then I'm a laughing idiot.

Poor Rupert's lost to all this. I catch his eye somewhere in the midst and there's this hopeless look on his face, the poor thing, this longing that stems from a sensitive childhood, a childhood spent alone, a sort of loneliness so inexplicably vast and painful that it just sits there like an old monster in his face as he watches Raptin attack my hair and I laugh and attempt and fail to attack him back.

Not just any old monster. One he's known for so long he fawns for it almost... like a friend.

I stir then. "Hey Rupert. You're into my sister, aren't you." Let's actually go out and say it. Let's see how freaking blunt I can get.

Blush busts out on his face, as shameless and fast and red as a freaking nosebleed. His eyes skirt the issue as he wordlessly nods.

"Then that means you're basically related to me now." I think he doesn't know how to respond to that. Not that I can blame him. "So, uh. Yeah." _Yeah_. Man, that came out less awkward than I thought it would... sort of. Oh, I know how to make it less awkward. "Then that _also_ means..." Come on, where is she when you need her...

Catching her gaze, I beckon her forward and forward she comes, a hand covering the twisted grin on her face. Grabbing her hand I pull her forward, inching into Rupert's personal space, and I go, "You're also stuck with her. So, uh, _yeah_."

Jkonna pulls the hand from her lips for long enough to cry, "Ohhh! Hey, Rupert! Long time no see, digadig!"

"Wait. Jkkie, you know him?" I gasp—in play. "You didn't even _tell_ me! How _dare_ you!" And then I swat at her but she ducks and then shoves me aside, giggling triumphantly.

"Mmmm-hmm! Well! Uh!" A bewildered grin trembles over her face. "I mean, I kinda diga-do? We met. Once. Remember? That's how I knew what, uh, _sort of_ diga-direction to go in earlier. Heh... huh." She glances back at him for a moment. "Never thought things'd turn out like this, huh, diga."

We're all quietly staring at Rupert and I think that makes him super uncomfortable and I think everyone else realizes this too but that doesn't mean anyone stops. In some level of shock and probably a heck ton of confusion, his eyes stray for the face of the person he knows he can trust—or, well, their, uh, unconscious face. So... gently, so securely he holds her. Heh... it's kinda sweet. No—No, it's... it's just _sweet_. It just... really is sweet.

Although clean, the longer I watch him the easier it is to detect the cuts covering _his_ face as well. And his exposed hands too, and neck, and... there's probably more underneath layers of clothes. And there's this fight in his eyes, these wounds, scars, things he's been fighting his entire life that he never quite managed to overthrow... There's this softening in my heart as I see this and I—and I almost... want to reach out, to help him, something. Though... I know that I can't. Not... much more than I already have.

A voice casually smashes into our midst. It comes from one of Rupert's pockets; a hand twitches and falls into said recluse when it sounds. _Rupert, just agree to them already, would you? Stop staring at Dina. She's unconscious, for goodness sake._ A loud, _very_ long scoff. _It's obvious that they're harmless, if nothing else._

 _Ye-Yes, Reyna. I see._ He struggles with her, this _Reyna_ , and then he looks back at us. Some of his standoffish edge has worn away. "Yes, I... never did... think that things would turn out like this." Struggling... but speaking too. "I-It is... nice to meet all of you. And see you... again, Jkonna." She can't stop a sudden grin at that.

His next words come slowly, steadily, stronger than his last. "You have... all come a long way to see Dina, yes..? Then, well..." They're harder to say now. Stumble. Deep breath. Try again. "If... you would like, um..."

And then his arms lift and he pulls back from himself and Dina with and... he's... _he's_... heh, oh, turd, oh my gosh...

He trusts us. He hardly knows us but there must be something he sees, something good, because he... trusts us. With the most precious thing in his entire world.

Well, Raptin's gone notoriously pale and Jkonna obviously isn't strong enough so I sidle on in there and take her from his grip myself. "Yeah, uh... ummmm..." Oh, geez. Let's just all be a mess. "Thanks." And I maneuver her a little differently, offsetting my arms, her torso, her legs, my hips, just enough so that I'm not carrying her bridal style. It's stupid but... well, whatever. I already did it, so.

He sags a little with the release of her weight—she's so small it's not much of one but I still feel it, feel her, in... _my_ arms now. Haha, maybe Rupert was just a little tired, and that's all he meant by the gesture...

No, no... No, he's carried much more than one little redhead in his life, way more than her puny weight, way more than he should've put upon himself. I can just... see it on him, this heaviness to him. But he did it anyways, and he's here today to show for it, even so.

I smile down, then, at her gentle little face. My... my beloved sister's face. Hahaha... heh... I-I never... I never thought... oh, _Dina_...

Dina's cold body against my cold body brings back the realization of just how... cold it is. "Aaaaand I think we should get the heck outta here now. This... sssucks."

"Pff! Couldn't be worded more perfectly, Dino! That there, that's it!" Jkonna slumps in by me, all jovial with a bounce in her step, Raptin to one side, Rupert at first behind us but slowly inching forward, bit by bit by bit.

Our group collides with the one residing toward the bottom. The majority of them lie clustered around the decaying form of... of a man, or what was once one anyways. The man who looks like Bullwort. Rupert uses one glance in his direction and his face goes deathly white and that's it, nope,nnnnno more of that, he's not having it. Jkonna's smiling a little softly as she goes after him, waving us off. Keep him company, something. Raptin and I sort of share glances as we stare back down onto the guy. These long, rasping gasps go pumping in and out of him, so he's not exactly down yet, but then we're just staring at each other and everyone's staring at us and I get the feeling that somehow we're supposed to do something here.

It's Dinu, that really intense-looking girl, who stands up and tells us outright. "Dina's like you two, right? Then you should have no qualms with killing an ancient." And then she stares right down at the creepy almost-dead guy and goes, _casually_ , "One of you should make it quick."

Yeah, there's the regret in her face, a twinge of forgiveness, but that is _nothing_ in comparison to that _lethal killer instinct_ , oh my _gosh_.

I look up at Raptin but he's gone stupid pale again and it's obvious whose role this is gonna be, huh. The guy who pulled everyone into this mess, who owns two ancients and a maybe little too much confidence, who wanted to badly to find the sister he lost so long ago again. I suck in a breath, not so bad, not so bad, like with Bullwort only uh not completely, like with Thomas only Thomas came back, like with Iggy only Iggy's n-not in _sane_ , not...

When I lean over him, the foul stench of backwash brushes up at me. After that, I hold my breath, puffing out my cheeks, eyes a pair of watery puddles. A hand draws out like a handle, something, if but for the claw on the end, a hook, and I attach its end to its target and it doesn't take too long, doesn't feel so bad.

His eyes were so big. Gaping, gaping holes. It didn't... take a genius to see there was something horribly wrong with him. So many ancients surrounding him, so much of a mind wastrel, something, something... gone forever, huh.

I get up, shaking, and I push myself in the general direction of Raptin, who takes me in quickly, around me and Dina both, and we stay like that for a little while as the man's rotting soul disintegrates. I don't look, though. I don't know, that's what it s-sounds like is happening.

We just... stay like that. The three of us. The... dinaurians reunited. Pff...W-Wait until Dad hears... oh my gosh...

Jkonna's soon after, and then it's all of us again... and Rupert, too, huh. And Dina in my grip, sturdy and careful.

It's still a little too heavy. Even after Thomas and Iggy return with the two missing boys, and then it's everyone, and then it's time to go. Even on my way back when all I can hear is her breath in my face, her pathetic scraps of breaths and her tiny face pressed into such a gentle, gentle smile. Even as Droplet cries more and Lone cries maybe a little bit and Harei cries a lot more and so does Pippy. Even though Jkonna and Raptin are both acting a little out of place around each other.

I think there's relief budding beneath it all. Going back, back to the islands and that penthouse Joe lives in with all the toys Dina used to play with... back when she was young. He said we can stay... we're not really sure how long, probably until we know what to do with my sister, huh.

She's breathing. A heart pumping blood down in her chest, sometimes slower but still pumping on faithfully. Her complexion fleshy, not lacking color as far as I can tell. Her fingers flexing, slightly, every once in awhile.

Her body's cold, even as we seek a warmer place far, far away from those stupid mountains. It doesn't get any warmer. And that worries me, but... she's also breathing, and there's that.

It's still too much to swallow. A _boyfriend._ She has a freaking _boyfriend_... and she doesn't remember me either. Maybe never will, we don't even know. Plus... that boy—the dress boy— _Todd—_ a-apparently Todd's her foster brother, and Pauleen a dear friend. Joe used to be some sort of caretaker and Luk saw her a few times and Mier doesn't really know her but knows her more than I ever did and the ancient inside of her only just left... and then I think my eyes overflow.

I'm sorry. I can't help it.

Rupert's near me, as we go. He notices, freaking _fast_. I get the feeling he always does when it... comes to these sorta things. He's just there and before I know it and before he knows it he starts talking. Softly. About himself, about Dina.

About the kinda world they grew up in. Caliosteo. A tournament. Whoever the heck that Zongazonga guy was. And his daughter, and why she was in my sister, and he can only speculate why she's gone now, but she is, and that's... that's good.

He tells me about the guy that wasted away—his _dad_ , oh my _gosh_ , that was his _dad_. His dad was... nothing like my dad. And I tell him about that, laugh-crying, I tell him all about _our_ dad, Dina's and mine and I guess his too if he gets any closer to my sister _, huh_. Heh. I don't know how many times I tease him about that, but... it's funny. He hardly bats an eye to it.

I think he secretly likes it. My attention, my teasing. Pff... Rupert.

She comes to life, slowly coloring in our stories, though in the real world she hardly alters. She's sweet and all but a major pushover—and the blue dimetro who's super angry all the time is _Torn_ , and he has issues, and don't take it seriously if he yells at me, he yells at Rupert all the time apparently.

And it's just like that for I can't say how long. Just our voices, just these stories... for what must be hours on end.

I don't tell him, but at some point between his invitation and now I must've softened, like seriously softened, talking so much about myself, about Vivosaur Islands, about the people I care about who also care about me.

I don't tell him and I think that I maybe never will but suddenly I'm so... happy. So... gosh, it's so... so _happy_. Happy for him, happy it's _him_ , this... person, this gentle and shy and afraid person, that he's the one who found her, who cared so much about her, who tried so hard to save her.

And then I start crying all over again, but I blame it on my sister, on finding my sister.

And then suddenly it all sinks in and I _am_ crying for her and there are so many tears and this should be more embarrassing than it is. But it's not, because... because _Rupert_ , dang it, Rupert. Rupert who cries way more often than me from what it sounds like, huh, haha...

Wow, huh...

I am _way_ too happy about all of this...


	39. He Who Saw, Now Set Free

**Rupert: -a little nervous-**

 **Dino: -casually bursts in- so anyways you're ready right**

 **Rupert: -a little more than a little nervous-**

 **Dino: you're probably ready**

 **Rupert: -a lot more than a little nervous-**

 **Dino: ...yep -goes to sit in a chair and misses sit and falls in a crashing heap onto the ground-**

 **Rupert: -IS COMPLETELY VERY NERVOUS-**

 **Dino: THIS IS FINE**

 **Rupert: -THERE ARE CAUTION BUZZERS SCREAMING IN HIS HEAD-**

 **Dino: I JUST, MAN, EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT NOW**

 **Rupert: -can't respond is too busy silently fREAKING OUT-**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 39: He Who Saw, Now Set Free

There lies in a lightly-furnished chamber a bed, and beside it a nightstand. Each rimmed in carefully-carved oak, they shine to some level, though not much of a light hits their surfaces despite the large open window donning a side wall. Two figures lay sprawled off under the sheets, one considerably more dormant than the other: a pale, almost cooled, complexion, far-off closed eyes, unmoving limbs. The said other twitches at intervals in a state of fitful rest. Reddish skin hints at a feverish state.

Gentle fingers still hold tight to a thin, black pen, a dark stain upon the otherwise white sheets, white skin. The pads at the tip of these fingers have been stained ink dark. Only slightly, but enough to provide insight upon the frantic scratchy writing left unfinished upon a fluttering sheet of parchment.

Similar papers stand stacked on the nightstand, wobbly, like a small tower of blocks built by a child. These too wriggle in the anticipation of flight, the bare breeze from the window pulling at sheaf after sheaf without quite stirring enough to pull a paper out from the top.

The corners upon the right side of each flickering page are stained by inky fingerprints. Hasty creases and awkwardly-bent edges hint at how much time a dutiful reader or perhaps a number of readers have spent puzzling over the pages. Small dates line each corner, breaking off some scrawled bits of writing with other dates, other times, hatch-marks blotting out misprinted words only partially harder to read than those left particularly unblemished.

At the top of the topmost paper, near the corner of the earliest date of all pages: greeting.

 _ **Dearest girl,**_ followed by rows and rows of sloping text.

 _ **I ask you not to prejudge me on any of the content captured within these words.**_ Scratched out to the side, almost completely illegible, reads, **_Although I suppose you are illiterate, so it does not matter._**

 _ **Your brother is the one who suggested this method of reprieve. It is... my regret to admit that I have not fared quite so well after the events that came before; a liberation and a cage, I am afraid to say.**_ The next sentence is written in a significantly smaller font. **_I speak of your defeating Zoazoa,_** and then, crossed out, _**of course**_.

The next paragraph resumes the previously larger size. _**Your brother is a very strange individual. I wonder what you—**_ the word **_would_** vehemently scratched out after thoughtlessly writing it— _ **will think of him, when the two of you reunite. I was afraid of him at first. He is... boisterous, and an extrovert, and I think he was never informed of what exactly the concept of personal space refers to.**_

 _ **But I... like him. Your brother. He is not a bad person. When he first saw you, unconscious, in my arms as I carried you down the mountain, his eyes were tender. While rougher with his other friends—other rather strange individuals whom I think you will also grow to like—there was a special sort of softness he reserved to you. His sister.**_

Here the hasty, sloppily-made handwriting begins to peter out, gently, gently, the is dotting instead of running down with the next letter or smearing into incomprehension, the ys and gs filling out with eloquent curls.

 _ **I still cannot believe it if I am honest here—and I will be. Always, with you. I cannot believe that your family in the end was out there, somewhere, and all that obstructed them from visiting was a loss in memory similar—though not quite the same—to yours.**_ Crossed out, **_I believe Dino—_** and the next sentence instead is started with, in a large and uneven scrawl, _**Rupert, let me tell her! Bulllyy!**_

What can only be described as a war on penmanship squabbles out in scribbles and stray marks below. One can only imagine the frantic tug of the writer as he struggled to get his dubbed letter and his instrument out of the other's way.

 _ **Please excuse Dino. He is... eccentric, as I mentioned earlier.**_ Handwriting gone hasty returns. **_I will resume here with my original topic, of why I have begun writing an increasingly more tedious ordeal: namely, my letter to you. As I voiced, Dino is the one who suggested I write. My... well, I will be honest: my mind began to... deteriorate, shall I word it so, upon your departure. Temporary departure._** The word _**temporary**_ carved deeply into the paper, gouged like a tattoo on skin, something worthwhile to remember and look back upon. **_Dino told me of a girl he once knew—she was like you too, Dina, a dinaurian—who has since been lost to this world, how it hurt him like he fears your temporary departure has, ah, hurt me._**

 _ **He felt that an ability to let... out my feelings might be... helpful. He personally had no experience with the trial, as he, and I quote this as directly as I can remember, he felt that his "mind was all...", well, "funky and stuff", that "the world was super voidy", which I presume translates to null. Empty.**_

At this point the page is so caked with words that ink and fingerprints alike besmirch choice morsels of many letters, especially so in the bottom-right corner. Both front and back etch tirelessly black over paper losing its color to sloping rows and small, careless sketches off in margins.

So the second page begins. Same date at the top, most likely the same sitting.

 _ **I think if nothing else this exercise allows my mind to focus on some aspect outside of the slow, slow waiting, day by day by day as days accumulate and waiting only drags on... Oh, Dina...**_

Shameless tear-stains rain down upon letters, forming little pockets of almost pure black where the ink runs, where the words trip over each other in vine-like rows, slithering about and tangling together. To the touch the blotches are cold, not damp or sopping but there is a notable indent where a tear once dried into the crevice.

 _ **Where are you, my love? You lie and you rest and sometimes your chest rises and falls with breath faster than other times, or perhaps a little slower, though I doubt these means much of anything if they bob and twist and shift in pace and still nothing happens, not truly. So much as it hurt to lose you the first time, at least I knew where you were... at least I knew...**_

 _ **But I could go on. Though I suppose the purpose of this excursion is to go on where I could not before, because of fear, of anxiety, loss; I cannot say. Here my words flower quickly in my head and there they are on the page. Sometimes I start to... draw, too. Idly. Like the cast on my foot. You did see that once, yes? Yes, I recall... I want to say you were surprised when you saw it... happily, perhaps? Ah, perhaps. Mier did that for me... Mier is so fickle, now that he has seen Caliosteo.**_

 _ **I laugh, here. I think you will like Mier too, Dina. He has been surprised almost as easily as you were, I daresay, when he first stepped foot to one of the Caliosteo isles. Cranial, most especially: he cannot comprehend the heat, after living so long in a place as cold as Nomadistan. He is... well, let's just say that gondolas are not much of an item he looks forward to. More the utter opposite.**_

 _ **But all of this I heard second-hand, from him. I have not left your side since the events that henceforth stole you away again from this world.**_

On the back of this second paper, multiple sketches dance askew across the wrinkled white sheet. Heads, mostly, heads with long curly hair and big, soft eyes. A tentative smile, then a few full-out ones as if on the edges of laughter, only seconds away. The twinkle in the gaze, expression calming. Underneath one of the heads curves a small anecdote: _**Is this flattering or repulsive? I admit that Mier drew all of the nice ones, but I want to think I learn. Creation, words, art... I find it fascinating. Heh, is that odd?**_

Then below, finally the end of the first entry draws near.

 _ **Mier takes the time to visit rather often, though. He is both toward and against traveling, what with all of the time he spent in that cabin. Perhaps it is beneficial that he cannot return, since an ancient demolished it just before we found you—perhaps he needed that opening, to really free himself from the world he lived in for so long, the only world he knew.**_

 _ **Oh, dear. Dina, my hand has begun to throb unpleasantly. I regret to say that it seems I have taxed myself too greatly to go on for now, but perhaps later I will continue. It... It is a little nice, to think myself speaking to you again, as... absurd as this way of thinking is.**_

 _ **I love you, is all. Jkonna thinks I am too indulgent toward my feelings, and I do consider that she is correct... but Dino firmly labels her "biased".**_

 _ **To love someone enough that it comes to harm oneself is not exactly viable.**_

 _ **Would you think it a sin if I found... dare I voice warmth in my suffering? For if I care so much about another, so much that it hurts, then... then I really have found what I searched for so long. No, no, not what I searched for but who.**_

Wording grows tender as does the pain in the writer's hand.

 _ **I will... write to you again soon. Dina.**_

 _ **Your beloved.**_

The rest of the page contains all but order, instead a variety of scribbles suggesting more simplified versions of certain people. And words. Large, uneven words like those of the small intervene earlier, going off into a tangent of shameless self-promotion: _**DINO'S THE BEST**_ and **_HE'S SUPER COOL AND STUFF_** and _**JKONNA IS ALSO THE BEST BUT NOT AS BEST AS DINO**_ and other mindless dreck.

The one scribbled character slightly resembling a person with long, long hair sports a wide open mouth and a speech bubble, filled by a tidy, thoughtful handwriting, which reads, _**Jkonna's actually the best but Dino's too stupid to realize that. Have mercy on his poor soul.**_ It runs on well-past its designated speech bubble and even fills into the contours of the second character's chin, stylized with spiny hair and a tail.

The dates go on, slowly but surely, as does the writer's continually switching from hasty to genuine handwriting. In bouts of moments little drawings break off from text and other dreck with the names Dino and Jkonna written all over them show up from time to time wherever the space provides, suggesting a crime upon the letter only committed after the writer finished the page and put it away.

Another drawl sidles in and out sometimes, introducing with, _**Hi Dina. You don't know who I am, which is fine, but Rupert's hand got all tired and he still wants to write I guess so he's making me do all the dirty work. Dirty work? I guess this isn't dirty work.**_ Unlike the in previous messages, this text leaves unprovoked any sentences that could perhaps be seen as unnecessary.

The previous writer, however, appears to comb through it later and cross out what he finds unsuitable.

 _ **So yeah. Name's Mier. Rupert's obsessed with you so, uh, you should probably stop giving him a nonstop heart attack and come back or whatever.**_

The final sentence in this paragraph is violently crossed out.

Small text beneath the decimated sentence reads, _**Excuse Mier as well, Dina**_ , even though the potentially offending sentence has already been annihilated.

A hasty piece at the bottom reconciles with the boy in question. _**Mier is a little like Dino. He can be... tiring at times, but it is only his excitement that endorses such behavior. I am sure anyone would feel similarly if they lived in the same desolate home for thousands of years, without aging, without change in their life. Just a monstrous ancient sucking away at his will for so long... Mier is very nice... though he does not think so. He helped me. Often. Back when Zoazoa was still present.**_

 _ **And I helped him. With the ancient who is... now far gone. Mier is important to me now, and I want to say you will grow to if not cherish then at the very least tolerate him one day.**_ A gentle hand guides this paragraph, sloping, curving letters blending into a heartful cursive. **_My darling, I await when you return. He tells me he will be pleased to meet you, on that day._**

A happy little note squeezed in betwixt the bottom of the paragraph and the end of the page reads, _**Yeah I will, but dang if you aren't, Rupert, lookit you making a diary out to her**_ , this perhaps begrudgingly left in its place. The wrinkles where the sentence lay burrowed within suggests an often-read statement, fingers running over the text, thinking upon those words.

Entries pass on idly by, most significantly shorter than that first page absolutely supersaturated with rich, black ink. The heart of the writer held out for some time... waiting, waiting, as only a lover could do, one who cared so deeply of another. Time passed and days melded into weeks, and some weeks passed until that tender heart could not longer hold out, panic stabbing into cracks where desperation began to crumble it.

 _ **My dearest love, I cannot speak of this sensation burning from deep within me. While a flame of warmth... it burns, it burns so horribly, and I glance upon your lovely face and I see the pale skin, the shut eyes, the utter lack of expression upon one whose expression never lacked, one so in tune with her emotions. I find that wonderful about you, how open you are. How often you laugh, smile, cry... perhaps that is strange.**_

 _ **I cannot say. All I can say is that it hurts, how it hurts, Dina. So much as I love to speak with you I know this is not speaking, not truly, because there is no speaking if the party is not mutual and here I am writing to you, endlessly, hopelessly in love with a wonderful, beautiful heart I fear I have all but lost. Your voice is deaf to my pathetic ears.**_

Despite the haggard tone, words so carefully concocted fill the page overflowing. Loops and aimless twirls like bridges between letters drape along sentences and smudge where the page ends and he must lift his pen to continue. Eyes so soft watch the gentle, gentle flow of tenderly printed letters. A slow hand strokes meticulously at its art, its life's work.

What soft tears that dent the page.

 _ **So much as I yearn to be heard there is more than that as I yearn to hear—to hear you, Dina. My beloved Dina, I miss your voice, your trembling voice as it rises to a crescendo of joy, of fear, of anger, it matters not to me, I miss you so. I love that you listen to me but I cannot sit idly without listening in turn. My life has gone colorless without the presence of the one I hold so dear to me.**_

A pause, here. A larger gap between paragraphs, a small cliff.

 _ **Perhaps this is what Mier and Dino and Jkonna and Raptin and the rest of them spoke so harmfully of. So worriedly, so gently at me, as if I might break does one of them act without care toward me. As if I am some odd fanciful creature that will run away do they speak without thought, without a light voice.**_

 _ **Do you think that is so? I want to say yes, but... I fear my mind is in such a flux that my opinions are not to be trusted. Heh. At least that is what Mier so... warns me. Not to act without thinking, not to think too rashly.**_

 _ **Like he is afraid. Dina, are you afraid? Wherever you may lie right now, are you afraid? What of, if so? If not... why? I would probably be afraid, was I in your position. Or perhaps you feel no fear, or anything else for that matter; perhaps there is hardly a thought in your head you have become so—so numb.**_

A second gap.

 _ **No, no. I cannot think this way.**_

 _ **Sometimes I believe what Mier tells me, though I do not always. Perhaps that is another mistake on my behalf. You did not always listen to others, did you? I recall when you first directly acted against what my father firmly felt, how you so bravely stood up and fought back at him. Of course, in your eyes, even Reyna could see that you were terrified and had not a clue at what exactly you had done.**_

 _ **I think of that gaze sometimes. But mostly your smile. You... have a beautiful smile, Dina.**_

 _ **I think so. And it matters not if everyone else thought otherwise. I believe it; therefore it is so.**_

Toward the end of the backside, the page begins drawing out into little sketches of Dina once again. He had taken it as a sort of comfort, nurturing hope in a weak and failing heart, one so full of hope and love that as the days passed the hope began to sink, taking the love with it.

And his mind. And his soul. His heart most especially.

Sometimes after writing he would stray to her side and he would watch her, sometimes draw her, though mostly not. Soft, soft golden eyes relentlessly upon her, the lips managing to form into such a slight little smile, so small it practically vanishes before the eyes, but a spark.

At the bottom of the page lies a final question to his lover. _**Dina, will you return? You will, won't you?**_ Idle faces drawn almost circling about the words, some eyes straying to the writing while others blatantly ignore it. Always her face, always her smile, ever so carefully drawn upon the page, as if the slightest movement will permanently scar her.

 _ **Do you miss me... Dina? It has been so long.**_ Crossed out beside it lies, **_I miss you_** , a phrase written so often over the pages upon pages of written to-the-date weeks he has begun to erase it. Like that does anything.

While few and far in between, and less and less appearing as the weeks continue, still the disproportionate drawings of Dino and Jkonna live sandwiched betwixt miss yous and miss yous. Always some sporadic message come up with on the spot dances around their faces, some trivia: _**Tomorrow's a new day!**_ later appearing upon one edge of curling paper.

The back of one entry reveals a rather daring steal, an entire head-to-toes diagram of a person they entitled _**RAPTY**_ at the top, the letters doily. Arrows point out various features of the figure: **_super smart brain up here_** at the temple, _**pretty awesome looking hair**_ at the top, the dinaurian's layered hair doing no justice to the real one's, **_insanely detailed body_** pointing out parts upon the diagram not quite as detailed as the label suggests.

Near the bottom, a small message in faint handwriting: _**Jkonna, was it you who drew this? I believe Dino lacks in the ability, so I wonder. Also, you are missing a number of letters in my name. Did you forget them?**_ A playful tease.

Its response sits just off to the left, beneath RAPTY's foot, partially encroaching upon its inky edge. _**Hah! Whatever, Raptin.**_

One can only wonder what he had to say to such a reaction. Perhaps another tease of his, gentle things, probing without hurting, without bashing the reader as they state their accusation calmly, a particularly warm conversation if anything.

One can only wonder why the writer left this page in with his other entries.

Paragraphs begin to pick up again as they go on, hope leaking into sentences as it had in the beginning.

 _ **Do you hear us, Dina? Do you sense anyone outside of your preternatural slumber? Do you see me here as I wait? Oh, I cannot say. I like to imagine.**_

 _ **Dina, I have a secret, but I cannot tell you what it is until I see you again. Does that tease you? Heh, are you sad that I cannot say just yet? Well I suppose if you ever see this letter you already will know what secret I speak of... but thinking in such a way sucks the fun out of it.**_

 _ **Your brother came upon an agreement with me. He is the one who suggested it. I am... unsure why, though I could guess.**_

 _ **But I do not want to think about it.**_ Bashful letters blending together.

The entries grow thicker cursive as they wear on: gentler, gentler.

 _ **Jkonna spoke with me earlier today. She was shy as she did, half hiding behind her hair, and she stumbled over her words like being so quiet was not something she particularly enjoyed. She had much to say about Dino, about Raptin, though she admitted she did not know you very well, or me either.**_

 _ **So quiet about it. Such a violent girl—or at least, she once was. I see it, the way her shoulders hitch when she asks a question, the impasse across her face as she struggles to word little daily moments in her life, events she commits often and one would expect her to be accustomed to.**_

 _ **For instance, clothing. She showed in rags when we met again so she... now makes use of some of mine. She obsesses over the material, calling it much higher names than the worth it actually accommodates to. Silly, seeing her eyes light up over such... frivolous things.**_

 _ **At least, I see them frivolous. As I said before, Jkonna simply did not come from any sort of sheltered life. I think she enjoys speaking of the violence in her past a little much; her intense tone is rather amusing, how invested she gets into the story only for someone like myself to throw her off with a question. Oh, how she snaps back. What a funny girl.**_

 _ **You would like Jkonna as well, Dina. You would relate to the family she did not have... Ah.**_

And here the letter digresses for some time, idle sketches tackling over the left of the page as the right fills with crammed letters of a strange sort of excitement. _**You do know, Dina... it is not only your brother who awaits your return. You have a father, a well-meaning father, a kind and... wise man. I have not met him but Dino speaks very highly. Your father has yet to visit.**_

 _ **I think he is afraid to meet you—**_ the rest of the sentence hurriedly crossed out: _**before knowing if you'll ever wake up again.**_

An entry not far after picks up again, if but somewhat. _**Todd and Luk came by. Todd has recovered from everything, though not without sporting some amount of scars. Do you remember when Zongazonga took him under control and—well, I should not go into the details, they always did upset you. But you do remember, yes? He had healed particularly well... I cannot say about these new wounds.**_

 _ **Luk has come out of the situation without any. I daresay our old friend had... protected him. Is that not such a nice thought? Of course, painful for him at the time, but I assure you that Todd has lost little of his demeanor and what has worn down has merely been strengthened by a new sense of maturity... not that he lacked one before.**_

 _ **A little quieter, is all. A little less... wild, than he once was.**_

 _ **But Dinu never visits. Heh, ungrateful, no? I still care about her. Even so. Or perhaps it is I ungrateful for not visiting her... ah, I cannot say.**_

 _ **Pauleen comes by with flowers and leaves them by you. She... She cares very much, Dina. I think it's a little difficult for her to stay in the area, but how she cares, Dina. How she cares.**_

And of course, hesitantly left and hurriedly taken away, a stained cluster of sentences sits beneath this gentle entry in disrepair: _**I miss you so, Dina. I miss you so much.**_

The entries do not get much more positive than that any longer. Dutiful "will"s have been dropped and replaced carelessly or perhaps purposefully with "would"s; _**you would like to see them**_ , not _**you will.**_ How tenderly fallen, like that of an angel from the heavens left decimated below, how tenderly fallen his words grew to be, tortured language all but disguised by his eloquent cursive.

A stair leading down, down, down in a void, a never-ending spiral trapped beneath his feet as he wrote his heart away, the fevered writer's mind filling blank pages with vaguer and vaguer hopes and dreams and _**I love you**_ s flavoring his cursive so that eventually the phrase was all that made up his entries.

It was all he had left.

Finally, the entry in his weak grip, his unconscious hold ever weakening on his unfinished letter.

 _ **Dina, did I ever tell you that I have yet to sleep throughout this trial? Call it idiocy but... I could not, at first. I could not after seeing you again. My heartstrings so violently tugged, I simply could not sleep, could not close my eyes to a world where you had returned. Then eventually as the days grew long and I lost count—**_ a blatant lie; the entry's date matches with today's— ** _I remembered, suddenly, how you never slept during the Caliosteo Tournament, and for all I knew of you I never saw you try._**

 _ **So I... seem to have reciprocated this. It reminded me of you, held you in my heart so deeply.**_

Somehow the rest of the passage is separated from the start without even a gap between paragraphs. The cursive is denser, letters and punctuation evermore bleeding. _**Sometimes I think, one day I will lose myself to this aching inside of me. And I look forward to that moment.**_

 _ **Somehow I seem to have convinced myself that when such a day comes I will see you again.**_

 _ **This does not make any sense, does it? Heh... Dina... I can see the worry in your gaze. I see your lip trembling as you take my hand and ask me not to cry... as I did before I lost you, before Zoazoa, before that... mass came upon us.**_

 _ **I suppose it like... if I reciprocate your actions, then I... follow you, then I can find you where you were lost. Of course, I did this when Zoazoa possessed you and it ended horribly, but... it seems I am unable to cease.**_

And there it is again, smudged and scraping over the side of the page, staining the otherwise snowy white sheets with a blot of ink. _**I love**_

There Rupert's head lay, _**I love**_ smudging over his forehead from where it rested upon the words. A spent body curled by the one he holds so closely to him, his fingers reaching as he sleeps as if searching, or perhaps holding somebody.

 **Hahaha, that was... that was something! Oh rupy, oh babe oh no xD**

 **he kills me man**

 **I love him tho hahahaha**

 **that letter though, dang boy**


	40. Da: Safety

**Honestly my favorite chapter to possibly have ever written and I haven't even started yet**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 40: Safety

 _Dina_

An avalanche of heat: I feel it lifting, lifting off of me in a crescendo of passion and with a start I jolt and my breathing spikes and I—and I feel it squeezing a tremendous amount of energy out from deep inside of me, _badump badump badump ba—_

My heart. Hands reach out and search for it and halt at the cold, hard beating as it splinters into my very existence, _baDUMP baDUMP baDUMP baDUM_ — _PHHHH—_

What air in my lungs, chilled to the touch. What blood coursing through my frigid veins. What a soft, frosty temperature I give off... th-that is different, he-heheh, that is _very_ different than what I am used to...

Because I... know what I am used to. I see it all in my head, the one I love, the brother I found, the parents that may or may not be alive. The man who raised me in their stead and the man I lost from an ancient—heh, the father of the one inside of me. Inside—of...

Oh. That is right. I search there and come up with nothing because she—she is gone now. There is no more Zoazoa.

That is when I launch, woozily, into the air and that last curtain of darkness violently rips out of my face and stars of pain shoot through my vision, burning burning _burning_ where they hit and causing me to let out a soft cry and then I start coughing but I—but I—wait, I—I know—no—I _know_ this place—I know this place very well. Ahhh, I _know_ where I am... I used to live here—n-not only after the Caliosteo Cup but... when I was a child.

Dual memories... Double vision throbbing in my head. I raise myself, gently, elbows ensconced within the—the mattress I lay upon, my hair disheveled, my movements weak. A gentle canvas of black paints the features of the chamber, but I catch small hints of light... of a morning fast approaching. Somehow this excites me; I feel my heart pulsating rapidly as I hungrily take in the world I have missed for so long.

It is like... I held my breath for hours underwater—which is... which should not even be possible—but then I _did_ , and now I breach the world where my home is again and I cannot stop dreadfully gasping for air.

Hello, world... h-heheh.

I lie on the edge of the bed, so I start to turn when I—when my arm touches against another arm and for a second I am so shocked and so faint already I think I lose consciousness. When I spring back to life my cheeks have lost their color; I feel it draining out of me. A gentle shake of the head, for any harder and it starts to throb, and I peer over at the creature lying next to me.

He comes back to me in hot, throbbing memories, piecing together the gentle smile, the soft silvery hair, the golden eyes now closed to me. He is in his coat again, and just his coat, and somehow that causes me to smile a little, to see him how I always knew him, I guess, a-and I always really liked his coat... i-it smells like him and it... it is so soft... Heh, but _he_ is... much softer.

As I shift on the bed, struggling to get closer to him, springs screech and bounce and it does not take very long for someone to hear and investigate: hard footsteps _clomp clomp clomp_ on wood paneling over to the chamber. My cheeks have their color returned in a sudden splash of heat; I duck my head near his, shivering as the _clOMP clOMP clOMP_ comes closer.

And then a voice, jumping to life, hope thick and heavy in a soft western tone:

"Dina."

I jolt and turn and nod very guiltily and my head sort of stays tilted at the bedsheets. The way he voices my name makes me... n-nervous.

"Dina... doll, it's really you! Yer back!"

Oh that... overwhelming gratitude. Wh-What is that? I venture my gaze up toward the silhouette by the door and find a pair of coffee-colored irises. The freckled, reddish complexion, the orange curls... H-Heh. I know that face. And I know this room too, the one he... let me stay in when I was a child. "J-Joe, what is... wrong?" I go quiet again, s-so very nervous, and I search back into the face of the unconscious one beside me.

His demeanor is much... harsher, his lips twisted together in a knot of grief, hands reaching out even in sleep as if in need to hold someone—to hold—to _hold_... nnnngh... I start again, softly; "Joe, why is he so... sad? I-I was not gone for that long... i-it was only a night, right? Like when he was possessed by Zongazonga... it was only a n-night."

The soft step of booted feet nearing me. I turn back toward Joe, my lip quivering. "Doll, it's been over a month. Over two. Yer only just comin' back now." O-Ohh... oh... B-But it did not _feel_ like it was that long... "We've missed ya, Dina. It's... real good to know that yer back after all. He'll be... happy." Nodding gently toward the direction of my lover.

When my hand sets to his shoulder, Joe halts me—"Hey, easy. I know ya wanna see him, but he hasn't gotten much sleep while you weren't round here. Let 'im sleep for now. He'll wake soon, it's been awhile." So I release him and I let my hands curl up into a little ball in my lap. And I stay there for some time, staring out to Joe, my gaze wandering.

"So how has... everyone been, then?" I whisper, plucking at a hand. "I... J-Joe, I saw a boy who looked like he might be my brother—my real brother, and I... H-Have you seen him?"

Here Joe halts. "You... remember?"

"O-Oh! Oh..." I duck my head and nod vigorously. "Y-Yes... as I, um, as I was... as Zoazoa was..." I point vaguely at my face, eyes hovering toward Rupert. "They came back. They all came back... D-Did you know I had a mom, too? But I think she is... dead now. We-Well I guess it is obvious I _had_ one or I would... not be here now." A blush smears along my cheeks. "And a—and a dad, too! A... biological dad. I wonder what... he is—o-or maybe was—like."

"Well. I could go get him to tell ya, if you'd like." A snide little grin picks upon the face of the man who once raised me. "I have no qualms about you seein' Dino this late at night. D'you—ehh..." His gaze traces over my figure. "Naw, naw. I shouldn't make ya walk. No idear if you can yet. Maybe give it some time first." A small smile toward me and he goes off through the chamber door again.

As the world goes quiet around me again, I shift back toward Rupert and I look over and realize—underneath one of his hands—there lies a pen, and beneath the pen a... paper. I bend over the characters and squint at them, ha-haha, even though I _know_ I cannot read them because no-none of them are e-exactly recognizable because I-I can _not_ read... but I think his handwriting is pretty, if nothing else. I cannot tell but maybe he was writing something very gently before he... finished? Did he finish? Ha-Haha... I cannot tell...

That is okay... Maybe he is writing something that he would be embarrassed about if other people saw. Pff... yes, maybe... that would be silly... _Rupert_...

I smile down upon his soft, sleeping form. I start to lay down just by his head, so that we are at the same height, and I lean in near him when—

Footsteps _ram_ through the wood, past the wood, I think I hear him _slam_ into a wall s-somewhere and wince when he literally jumps from the entrance of the chamber and lands there, hand on the side of the door frame, breathing deep, heavy sighs.

Starting, I turn toward him, sitting up again. A hand subconsciously runs through my hair—it is not helping matters.

Sharp eyes meet mine, the color of stone. His spiny hair bounces with the motions of his panting breaths, a streak of orange mingled into the black. Black limbs—his scales contrary to my white—a silver belly—like _mine—_ and little orange highlights striping his elbows or wrapping around his waist in a small, decorative pattern that I have little time to try and visualize because his voice splits into my thoughts and then it is all I can think of.

"Sis!" Loud, bumbling, boisterous, proud. Such a warm, happy tone, flecked with years of summers spent out in the open and lazy days on the horizon...

My eyes fumble in his grip. I nod gently. "D-Dino..." my cheeks heating.

That is all it really takes for him to literally _launch_ himself onto the bed in one jump.

He stubs his knee on the side of the frame and does not even react. I stare back at him with these wide, wide eyes and he wordlessly takes me in, _me_ , his... sister.

Soft giggling. "Wow, Dina... you're really cold. Was your body always this cold? Man... I-I mean! I don't... have, like, an issue with it if that's how it is, but it's... kinda funny." Warm, honest eyes envelop my gaze.

"Heheh... N-No, not really..." My shy smile grows slightly. "I think this is new. I-It is a little scary..!" Softly laughing, softly crying, in the back of my head.

 _Here_ , it is... my brother is really _here_. That was him I saw, that one time in Mini-Vivaldi Isles, that was him. Heheh, he is much taller than me... and taller than Rupert, too. And maybe... taller than Joe, I think. He is so _tall_ , my brother... haha...

I nuzzle my head into his chest and he laughs, softer, his hand on my head. "F-For a long time, I did not remember you!" I mostly mumble it into his body but I think he still hears me. "But now I... do and I... and I know that I have not exactly known you for very long, but... is that weird? If I still feel... a connection with you?"

"Heh... Naaaah, that's not weird. I felt the same way when I saw Dad for the first time too. You'll see. We'll tell him you're here and he'll get all pumped and stuff and he'll be here too. And Raptin! We gotta tell Raptin. Man, do you even remember Raptin? He was, like—"

"O-Oh!" I start. "I do a little bit! And _Duna_! His... sister, right?" And that is where I think I say the wrong thing because Dino goes a little stiff against me.

But he quickly tries to correct himself. "S-Sorry, sorry, don't... get sad, that was my fault, I don't mean it. I just... Duna's, um... Duna's not with us anymore." Oh... "You remember the whole stone sleep thingy, right? Well there was this monster guy—oh, _duh_ , you know Guhnash—anyways long story short Raptin's an idiot and Guhnash came back awhile ago and we managed to beat the living turd out of him and stuff malfunctioned and stone sleep happened and they couldn't... bring her back. So she's... well, she'll be back. Uh. Some millions of... years from now."

Ohh... "Th-That is okay. Did... Did Raptin—"

"Pfffff, oh, man, you're gonna love Raptin." Giggles puncture his words again. I think...what happened with Duna has left him changed but... but he has recovered from the pain of it. That is... good. I-I did not know her very well... and I am sad that I never got to meet her... but... but at least she is not... completely gone either, huh.

Dino's voice tickles my ear. "Heeey, heey, Diinaaa, it's okay. Don't worry about Duna. She'll be okay. Heh... Seriously though, I feel like I should go get Jkkie and Rapty now, haha, you'd love them..."

Jkkie... and Rapt—Raptin. "Jkkie?" I squeak. There is a—a strange discrepancy between when my brother says it and I... a strange gap between the jih and the kuh that does not exist for him. H-How weird...

"Jkonna, also known as this really cool person who might've met you once? Maybe you don't remember though." I-I remember her a little bit... Pauleen knew her... "Okay, okay. Stay _right_ here. I'll be back in a little bit."

A soft pat on my head and he strides back out into the penthouse main floor.

I idly sit where I was, though I glance back at my beloved once or twice, his still figure only disrupted by the flowing of the air in his chest. When the chamber is this quiet and I struggle to refrain from making any noises, that is all I hear: his soft, soft breathing, which, hypnotic, begins to lull me into a state of pleasant warmth...

From the window on the side of the chamber, I turn and watch as the sun begins bubbling up in a corner, hot yellows and oranges bleeding into the sky as the grip of night weakens and weakens upon this world. Pushed aside by the rapid extrapolation of pinks, purples, and a golden hue, quickly the darkness is done away.

Some part of me wonders why Joe has not returned... but maybe he wanted to give my brother his own time with... me? H-Heh... maybe...

Oh... wait. Wait... Joe is not the only one I have not seen in some time...

Then the footsteps break my thoughts and the figures spill in and there they are, breathless: two boys, now—my brother and a second dinaurian—Ra-Raptin!—and a girl—who must be the esteemed Jkonna... yes, I think I recognize the dark face and the long, long mass of unruly red hair... ye-yes. My heart trembles in my chest as I watch them approach; Raptin is thus quick to snatch me into his arms and breathe a heavy sigh of relief. His figure visibly unwinds as he does so, yellow gaze screwed shut, his blue scales pinched on his forehead.

"So you live, little princess," he eventually murmurs. Such a soft voice... but it is deeper, far more gruff than Rupert.

As the words connect in my head I feel blush heat on my face. Oh—that is right—I guess I—I _guess_ that means I—am a... H-Huh. That is very strange to consider. This is all very... strange. "Eheh... Y-You too, Raptin... I have not seen you in very long." Gently my eyes raise to his stature and I blush a-a little harder. "You are... m-much taller than when we were children."

His lip curls into a little grin. "Did you shrink, Dina?" laughing softly when I cannot hold his gaze. "I jest... I jest. You have grown as well... into a very"—here he takes a breath, as if inhaling my existence, trying to imprint it in his mind—"kind young woman, if anything your, well, lover had to say was true." And then I blush a little more because he mentioned Rupert and... nnnn... _Rupert_...

When I look back up at him, at someone I have not seen in so long, someone who... as a child, meant so very much to me—I feel my heart swell and laughter bursts out of my lips, and I cover my face, and I cannot stop... laughing.

"It—It has been so long," I mumble, "it... it really has... been so long, h-huh... This is all so strange to think about, ha-haha... but it is nice, too..." Oh, the word does it no justice... so _very_ nice, but even that...

Dino flanks my side, the one by the window, and when I glance back toward him again there is just this goofy little smile on his face. I think he is happy too. And then my eyes go to Jkonna, quiet Jkonna, with her nervous gaze unable to quite reach anything outside of the floor. Her bangs flutter over her face and darken her complexion, easily hiding whatever it is she feels.

She eventually mutters, "Hey, uhhhh, diga-don't get any diga-dumb ideas about, uh..." A hand points back at her clothes, which I suddenly—wait— _suddenly—_ those are _his_ clothes—"Hey! I said _no_ diga-dumb _ideas_! Seriously, listen, it's just... well my clothes were diga-demolished on the way here and I needed something and he's only a little larger than me and he has a lot of... stuff." Nervous again, she wraps her arms over her chest—over a white button-up I have seen him wear before. Unless he has multiple? Is there another one underneath his coat? Heh... maybe.

"Heheh... I think it suits you."

This does not assist Jkonna; she stiffens. "Ugggghhh! Diga-Don't _say_ that turd! You're making me... freaking _nervous_!" With a groan, she then covers _her_ face with small, dark hands not all that different from my own. "Raptin won't stop about that too! Diga-Don't tell me y—"

"Jkonna..?" I sputter when I realize I spoke and slap a hand over my mouth. It—It sounds... _funny_. It is not at _all_ like when Dino said it... I cannot even... p-pronounce it right... ohh...

When Raptin, beside me, straightens, his lips breaking into a tantalizing smile. He turns to Jkonna and murmurs, only a little smugly, "Of course she would pronounce it similarly."

"SHUT UP! LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU TURD!"

Something about the way she shouts it makes it vulnerable, makes _her_ vulnerable, and Raptin giggles softly as he watches her blush behind her fingers. I flinch back from her words and glance over to Rupert yet again but—but it does not wake him.

Eventually they all settle down and sit around me, choosing little morsels of the bed to claim for themselves, though I soon come to terms with the fact that personal space is nonexistent; Raptin by my side, Dino with an arm over my shoulder, Jkonna squeezes between myself and the first. I think it is Dino who starts talking first, his eyes both connected with mine and distant, somewhere far, far away—around the world, he whispers, that is where he came from. With his words he crafts a world full of smiling faces and a lot of vivosaurs and the orphanage that he grew up in.

Because he forgot, too. He forgot me and everyone else for a very long time.

"Hey Dina, do you even know how old we are?"

"O-Oh! I—I did not even think of it!"

"We're almost... twenty, I wanna say? Right? Raptin, does that sound right?"

The soft laughter from the blue-hued dinaurian. "Well, I am just past twenty-five, and Duna was... around that age, so I want to say yes."

I smile gently at my feet. "Huh..." And there I halt. "Jkonna"—she flinches at _Jihahnah—_ "how old are _you_?"

"Frick, I diga-don't knowwwww... uhhhh, older than that, I wanna say... but nowhere near as old as Raptin... man, Rapty, you're a fossil on your own, huh."

He rolls his eyes and tenderly pats her head. "Of course not." She sticks her tongue out at him.

As my brother continues, I start to lean against him, and some part of how gently or slowly I enact this causes him to turn his head and laugh, eyes soft. He tells me more about his home, about a doctor named Diggins and this very... um, energetic girl, Rosie... which I think is a very pretty name. When I mention this Dino sort of flinches out and he and Jkonna burst into laughter.

Well. _I_ think it is a very pretty name. She is probably a really... pretty girl... _yes_...

Raptin steps in where Dino loses context and quickly takes over the story, touching gentle, mellifluous tones as he describes the starship that brought us to this world, the father that Dino and I share, the father that Raptin has begun to look up to. The father that will come and—and meet me, soon.

With a sudden jolt, Jkonna reaches for her neck and unfastens a strange, silvery cord around it. I glance back and start myself when I recognize that Dino and Raptin both wear one. She shoves it toward me and mutters, "This is yours," not without a softness to her edge. I pluck it and try to fix it around my neck but it... but it is so cold and tangled in my hands and... it... nnnn...

Dino has to help me... and he explains as he does... "So that's how we connected with Dad. There's a function on here somewhere that does the thing, and I think there's one that also, like, makes a hologram? And there's probably more but I just don't use them because that would get super messy super fast."

"Oh, you forget the button I used to paralyze all of your friends. Do you not remember, Dino? I assisted your father, who disguised himself as the father of Rosie to steal all of the sub-idolcomps..."

Jkonna and my brother share a glance. "Tacky idols, you mean," she rectifies, her grin smoothing out.

He shakes his head, smiling softly. "Say what you will. You sound ridiculous, but if you wish to sound ridiculous, be my guest." It causes her to blush, and her smile shatters into a scowl.

"Stop iiiit..."

I think they continue for some time afterward, about when Dino met Dad first and hit... um... a very _low_ point, they murmur without explanation, because it needs no explanation, and then there is something about a birthday party, but as the light stirs the chamber my eyes continually flick back toward _him_ , as he sleeps, and then I watch and I gasp as he twitches and stirs and his beautifully golden gaze slowly... slowly... lulls open.

"A-Ahh! P-Please excuse me," I whisper frantically, elbowing and shoving past limbs and torsos and certainly causing more havoc than needed if I thought before I moved but—but it is too late, too late for such a thing. I situate myself by the side of my beloved... and I wait.

The eyes, as they raise, little suns in a vast expanse of beauty, catch the light of the morning and then as they raise further they—they catch me.

A shudder grips my body. Somewhere deep, deep down inside of me, somewhere so far down I cannot begin to comprehend it, I feel my heart seize and its strings tug, tug from that somewhere, my tears jerk from that somewhere, my smile pull from that somewhere, this warm, warm sense of security click from that somewhere.

I cannot breathe. I-I cannot breathe. My hands go to my lips and a silent sob wracks me.

Small tears stroke down his cheeks in a crescent. "Dina..." He halts, breathless. "Have... I died? Are we both dead now?"

So readily, so purposefully—my heart cries in my chest and I shake my head violently, _no no no no no_.

His breaths stumble. His eyes... so gentle. "Then..." A conclusion dawns within his face and a tender sigh escapes him. "Please never wake me."

A-Ahhhhhh! Ne-Never... Ahhh... he _thinks—_ he _thinks_ that _he is—_!

My panic heightens and heightens and I watch as he sits up: his hair ruffled in places, his eyes melting tears that have since dried on his face. It suddenly happens: my hand has reached his cheek and cups it and I feel the heat burn against my frigid fingers.

He leans into my hand... and he pauses. A small pinch of confusion tousles him and he is quiet. Recognition slowly dawns upon him. Then, casually, like this is the only solution there is, he leans back from my hand, unfastens his coat, and pulls it over his head and tugs it down under mine all in one motion. His hands stray to the little clasp over the blue collar and he clicks it into place and then rests his hands over my shoulders. "It's yours."

"A-Aahh... I-I..." My eyes melt into his gaze, his small, hopeful smile, his gentle hold. I flinch and our foreheads bumps and I blush and I—and I stay there, his head so... warm a-against mine, as his fingers curl around mine in a secure grip. "Ru...Rupert..." And that is—that is as... f-far as I can get.

What fear obstructed in his tone has flooded throughout him, this wonderful, euphonious lilt: his lips a breadth away from mine, his breath pressing into my lips. "You are... cold. Please let me..." A bashful glimpse to my—my— _mouth—_ my heart pumping hard in my chest—"warm you."

I tightly envelop him before he does me. While he pauses, eyes flashing, I intercept him and he is fast to embrace me, to kiss me, to let one warm hand cradle my cold cheek, to—to fill me, to fill me... overflowing with love for the gentle, gentle boy I care so dearly for...

When a clap, _KPKF_ , punctures the moment.

And then another, and another, slow claps trickling into my head and causing me to pull back from Rupert, my face a hot and—and maybe a little wet conglomeration.

One tactful glance in the direction of the noise. Rupert wipes his thumb over his lip and asks, "What is it?" in such a way that the words hint at a conversation prior to this one, prior to—to when I was awake, back before... he fell asleep, something else somewhere far, far away... far away from me.

"Heh. Heehee." My brother chokes out into a round of laughter. "Oh my gosh! You _guys_! Maaan, this is weird! This is... so weird!"

A soft, curt rebuttal. "Your sister could speak the same toward Rosie, did she meet her."

"Sh-Shut up, that's different," Dino splutters.

"It is not." I look back at my... my family; a snide little grin has colored the older dinaurian. My brother has resorted to a pout.

It is Jkonna, the last of the three, after whipping her hair back behind her and standing, who addresses us pointedly: "Yeah, uhhhhh, Dino? We should... guys, we should... y'knowww... uhhh..." Her hands twirl in a slight motion in front of her. I think she does not know what that is supposed to mean e-either. "You knooowwwwww..." A groan pulls out of her mouth. "Digaaa..." Then she butts against my brother. "C'mon! Right? We're... We're..."

Dino then pointedly glances back toward me; a sudden, knowing smile seizes his face, which melts with a warmth that snags my heart. "Yeah, yeah... I know. Heheh..." He is quiet after that, gaze hovering over me, mind elsewhere.

"Dina?" My gaze is directed to my—to my beloved again. I cannot stop a sudden beam from breaking upon me, and he returns it warmly. "Do you think you could stand? Or... walk? That is... Todd, Luk... I believe they would like to see you now that they know you have..." His gentle, bashful gaze not quite reaching mine. Such warmth upon his face...

"Heheh... I-I have not walked in... s-some time, huh..." Does my mind know that any better than my body? Ha-Haha, it hardly feels as if I have been asleep much longer than a... night, or s-something. N-Not that I would know very well... o-oh right: the nightmares.

Ah. Since Zoazoa has gone... I-I wonder if they will go with her. Oh, that would be... _oh_... h-heheh, I have had much too many good things happen to me already... I fear any more and I might lose myself to my emotions.

Scooting up next to Rupert, I straddle my legs over the side of the bed and swing myself to the grou— _thmmp—_ and I tip and—ahh—and I sway and I—and I—and—ahhh, okay, okay—my hands go flying out and a throbbing breaks out in my head and I... and I... s-stand.

 _BURMP_.

Then I capsize to the floor.

Not a moment passes before my beloved springs to my side, his arms gently coaxing me to my feet again and his lips by my ear, whispering condolence after condolence as I tightly press my hands against him, my breathing having gone a-a little hysteric.

And my storm passes, and my tides even out and I... and I sigh softly, my head finding rest against his. He pulls me into a reassuring hug.

Dino is quick to my side as well, a-and the others too, though I see Dino the easiest, his head blocking out anyone else behind him. He does not get quite as close as Rupert is to me and I consider asking him but he cuts me off first: "Hey, Dina—Dina, take it easy... heh, holy turd..." And then I try to ask him again, the words forming; and he must see the question bubbling in my gaze and that strange, knowing smile comes upon him again and he shakes his head to me. He is soft when he does this.

Cheeks heating, I eventually mumble, "I-I am fiiine... d-do not worry..." Swallow. "It was just a little bit scary... i-it is okay..."

And it is funny, how quickly that eases the tension in Rupert, in Dino, in the very air in general. And I start to giggle, covering my face.

"Dina?" Rupert, his tender voice in my ear. "Do you feel alright?"

"Ye-Yesss, eheh... heh... heheh... I-I just..." A great smile spreads across my cheeks. "I just... you are all so _funny_... I-I only fell! I am fine... Eheh, I only fell..."

A small pout counters on his lips. "Yes, well." And that is all he has to say to the matter; his grip tightens around me.

He asks me then, head closer, his breath tickling my face, "Would... you mind coming with me, Dina? I... I wanted to..." A sudden dip in his eyes betrays a vast, fearful void. "I wanted to... take you somewhere special. O-Outside of... seeing the others again." His fingers tighten as he winces silently. "You would... like to see the outside world again?"

My heart, I... "Rupert..." Oh, the heat on my face... "Heh..." He is so... _Rupert_... "Please... Please do ta-take me. I want to go with you... Rupert."

He tries and fails to hide the sudden smile that blooms fast enough. My fingers curl around his and he cannot look at me... so shy, all of a sudden.

What is it that he is so excited... and yet so nervous... to show me? Oh, Rupert...

As if this has all been rehearsed before, Dino clears back. Jkonna and Raptin are quick to follow; similarly knowing looks touch their complexions and cause my heart to pulse rapidly. One of them waves, I ca-cannot tell who—even though their skin colors are—I-I know—even though they are all _different_ , I... ohhh...

Rupert is fast to lead me out of the chamber. We chance upon Joe a second time, who grins, waving us off, and then it is out of the penthouse and down the elevator and outdoors: so fast, so soon. One of his hands holds onto mine, our fingers threaded; the other directs my head toward his again after we stop outside. A rush of morning heat glides against us as his lips connect to mine, my arms wrapping tightly around him, his hands gently cupping my face. Such a tender touch he has... he-heheh... such a warm hold, such a... beautiful smile...

I-I am... out of breath when we pull back from each other. O-Oh goodness... a-and dizzy... Seconds pass before I realize I careened into him again, my head resting against the crook in his neck, his breath softly tracing my cheek. Still a... still a-a little hard... to stand.

But my beloved is quick and happy to support me. Heh...

"Dina..." And I sense a heaviness in his tone and look up. "Oh, Dina..." And I watch as small, wet orbs form in the corners of his eyes. "I... I missed you, Dina..." And they roll freely down his cheeks. "I love you... Dina..." And they splash upon mine and continue, further, further trailing until I lose them somewhere far below.

"N-Nnng..." I bite the inside of my cheek as my lips start to tremble. And there it is, my heart, my... oh, my aching heart... "I love you..." My voice hardly more than the breath on my tongue, my head hiding in his chest, the soft white fabric of his button-up brushing against my skin. Heh... it has that... slight musk, like his—like his coat—like— _my?—_ coat does...

I really... cherish that smell. Pff... that is so... that is so funny sounding... but I do, I... I really, really do... he smells... sweet... He-Heheheh...

Imagine if _Torn_ heard thi—

My head darts up and bumps against his but before I dry my o-once again wet face or think to ask him about my vivosaurs I feel it, a thumping deep down inside of me, shaking through my core. The shudder of metal wings gliding in the air, slicing the sky and churning as it slinks down to our side.

A helicopter. O-Ohhh...

Rupert leans close to my ear as he whispers: "Todd and Pauleen have regained the chamber they stayed in when the Caliosteo Cup began, if you recall where that was." Oh—Ohh, Ribular Town... "I believe Luk stays there as well. Mier is... I cannot say... and if you wonder, Dinu is... Dinu is most certainly in Cranial still with our grandfather."

Oh... huh... heheh... Thinking about them again, the memories churning in my mind... Faces, names, voices color my imagination.

"Would you... mind our going there, then, to Ribular Island?"

I bite at my grin, eyes turning to the ground. "Eheh... that is fine with me..." Really, being outside at all—in a place that is not so cold, so desolate like the outskirts of Nomadistan is more than enough for me. Heh, I guess I will not be returning to Ilium Island soon, then...

Funny to remember... Rupert and I were roommates there—on _that_ island, like Todd and Pauleen in Ribular. He-Heheh... it was all so long ago... wow... Back then, I did not even know who Zoazoa was, much less her father, much less who _my_ father was... I-I did not even know the name of the boy I now hold so closely to my heart... H-Honestly, I think I was a little indifferent to him at first... Ha-Hahaha... that is sad to think of. Understandable, I guess, but still a little sad.

"Alright." His lips trace my cheek and soon after, we board the helicopter. I cannot tell from the side who lies in the cockpit, but whoever it is they call out in greeting:

"Hey! You're that weird _girl_ everyone's been talking about, the one that didn't wake up for a few months, wasn't it!"

Ah... W-Wow... "Eheh..." Oh, my voice is still so quiet... the whine of the engine drowns me out... pff—Rupert is quiet too... Well... I step closer, closer to the cockpit, peeking my head over the side of the cush—

"Hey, weird girl!"

"Ahhhh!" I fall back as a figure bombards me to the hard, carpeted ground; my eyes slowly follow the flowing dress—a sumptuous burgundy—to the head of the wearer and... th-there the tears are again. "T-Todd! Todd, it is you!" And then I cannot st-stop laughing, my chest hurts...

"No, nooooo! I gotta be 'weird boy'! Dinaaaa, you're ruining everythingggg!" And then he is laughing too and I think neither of us can hear the one over the other.

From the seat by my head, a voice slowing becoming more recognizable chimes in. "Todd, nah, you ruined everything first. You just gotta _burst_ on in, huh. Like a freaking _loser_." My head props up and my eyes clash with a sharp hazel—the blunette stiffens as a grin curls up his face. "Hey, Dina."

"Ahhh! A-And _Luk_! You... You can fly helicopters?"

He raises a free hand to his chest as if offended; his twinkling gaze gives him away. "Well, yeah! C'mon, don't you remember? I'm the one who flew that big fancy one to Rupy's dad's mansion! Man, I used to fly that guy everywhere, hahaaa, it was sorta my thing..." A softness glazes over his expression. Freckled hands return to the wheel and gently begin pulling the helicopter into the sky. "Anyways, I guess they needed a dude to help out here and there, so Joe hired me, so... yeah. Pretty neat junk, gotta say. Well, I think it's pretty neat junk."

"Oh, wow! That is... That is very great!" I struggle to clap from beneath my foster brother.

Todd resumes his loud, joyful banter afterward: "Yeaaaah! Pretty _boooring_ , if you ask me!" When Luk rolls his eyes, my foster brother sticks his tongue out at the former, though he is too busy watching the sky to notice. A very... careful driver. A very good driver.

I shift back; there Rupert stands by my head. His smile amplifies as my eyes land upon him. "Rupert... you said Todd was quieter."

"Heh..." He turns to the perpetrator in question. "Well, that was before you returned." In response, Todd gleefully sticks out his tongue at _him_ , too. Heheh...

"Yeah, speaking of things that happen!" Todd turns his head back upon me, his chocolatey gaze scrutinizing. "Hey, where the heck's Torn?"

"Ahh!" I turn back to Rupert. "D-Do you... know where... Ah—Ahh..." Sudden flashbacks color my vision and I close my eyes, clapping a hand over my lips. Torn seizing out of the side and thick, nailed hands lashing back at him and Torn— _Torn—_ _Torn is effortlessly flung to the side—_

Zongazonga curdles my head and I crumple, a soft sob erupting out from my heart and pouring effortlessly through the air around me. Did... Did _Zoazoa_ or any of those _other_ anci—

"Ahh, Dina..." The soft _bmmph_ of someone landing to my side. Rupert envelops me as my head hides in his chest; a button pokes at my eye and I squeak weakly. "Dina... Dina, hush, I am so sorry, please... ahh, no, no, no—do not cry, do not cry... Torn is _safe_ , Torn is _fine_ , as are _all_ of your other vivosaurs... They are all fine... They just... they are sleeping right now."

Oh, what relief... it spills off of me like a second layer. I crumble into his hold and press my palms to his shoulders, shaking weakly. "O-Ohh... ohhh, th-thank goodness... th-thank you, thank you... nnnn..." Sleeping, h-huh... like Rupert before he saw me again. H-Heheh, they will be mad, then, when they waken and realize I am not there.

Sleeping, though... Wait, why would they be—

"Todddd! Would you get offa that poor girl already? You're gonna squeeze the life outta her or something, geez..."

It is almost comical how erectly Todd sits up, only to promptly tip and fall over aside me. With him out of my way I gently raise to shaking feet again; Rupert rests a hand to my shoulder, steadying me. We share a smile, then.

And Luk continues. "Where we goin' exactly? Joe didn't give a whole lot of directions when he... hhhgh, Rupy, you should've told me what your—"

"Ribular," my beloved mutters in a suddenly sharp tone. "That is all." I glance toward him, my beloved: one precious second reveals his strikingly bright, distraught gaze in flux with mine. Quickly he turns, head if but slightly hung, his silvery bangs hiding his feelings once more. Pressing my lips tightly together, I squeeze his hand.

He returns the favor immediately. His tone, greatly lowered: "Dina..."

What quiet there once was in the shadow of the moment is now lost by the tackle my foster brother directs in our direction, forcing an arm around each of us as he jumps up and down in place. "Maaan! It's been so loooong, though!" Oh, Todd, he acts as if nothing has changed... heh, there is solace in his joy. "Missed you both, y'know? Hahaha... ahhh..." His lips waver out into a docile grin. Comforting, warm... heh.

"I am happy to see you too," I mumble, wrapping my free hand around him. It is... It is so strange to think in comparison to... to just how long they have gone without seeing me— _I_ have gone without seeing _them_ , not once, not even once, for months... and a great portion of that time I did not even feel passing.

Rupert is quiet, though I catch a slight trace of a smile in his face. Soft, somber... When I bump against him he cannot stop the jolt of a grin that results from besmirching his otherwise calm, quiet demeanor. There is an understanding between them—my foster brother, my beloved—and the former steps back happily, twirling on one foot.

"Ohp! Here we come!" One tan, freckled hand raises and points out the vast expanse of sky spreading in front of us and the dollop of green island in the midst of so many blues. "Righ'eeeereee!" Swinging his arms out high, one of them casually hitting our driver. He does not even stop to consider the action, jumping right up again. "Lukk! LUUKKKKK! DOES PAULEENIE SEE ME FROM HEEERE?"

A perturbed grin streaks, a flash, along the gaze of the boy in question; then it mellows into an easygoing mirth. "Want me to push you out the window so you can find out?"

"Yeek! Nooouhhh! Bullyyyyyyy!" Swiping at the boy at the wheel, Todd sticks out his tongue. Not that Luk sees this one either, eheheh...

And they are right. It is not long after that the sleek, dark helicopter lands upon the turf below, before we all empty out of the body, before the glistening sun twists down my scales all over again. Rupert and my friends stay close to me as we exit—i-in good cause, when I—when I _trip—_ and nearly hit my head on a _rock_ — _nnnnng—_ and even after landing on the ground Rupert does not stray. Heheh, not that... not that I g-give him a chance to... pff, not that he minds, though... eheh...

And they are right again when a figure billowing in turquoise skirts swoons into my personal space and scoops me up into a hug, nearly but not quite cutting off the hand I hold tightly to Rupert with. Pink curls blunder around my face, my figure, and hers; and Pauleen tosses back her head to let out a long sigh, her voice feather soft, paper thin.

"Haven't seen you in ages, huh..." Her grip loosens and I scoot back to the side of my beloved. Noting this, my friend giggles gently. "Of course, _course_... ah, the both of you crack me up." Such tender, emerald eyes... "And stop staring like that. Geez, _no_ , I am the _only_ one here, diga-don't you even _ask_ where the fuck Mier is because if _any_ one knew..." Her lip screws up, only partially in play.

Rupert shakes his head slowly. "It is no matter. We will see him again soon."

So affable as he is... well, Pauleen is not. "Diga-Damn him." She puffs her cheeks with that, slumping her arms twisted over her chest. "Whatever. He's... ah, whatever. We all know that we aren't gonna see much of you today anyways. Heh, there'll be more time..." And then— _then—_ before my eyes—a small, precious piece of a smile touches her lips and she drops her head, shadows streaking past her face like—like— _just_ like—the smile _Jkonna_ made, the same knowing smile as Pauleen.

My beloved cannot hold his gaze to that. Nervous—suddenly _nervous—_ he manages a slight smile, small shake of his head. More nervous... than last time, and the time before that, even.

Swallowing, he turns back to my friend. "Heh. That is fair..." And then he nods, slightly, and like he gave a hidden message the people around us begin to part. I glance back at my friends, the same—the same little giddy slivers of grins poking out on faces that some struggle to hide, while others—like Todd—do not even care about the facade; he bursts out into little fits of giggles that Pauleen vainly attempts to elbow out of him.

In some form of translation, he tugs me onward and murmurs by my ear, "There is something I want to show you, Dina... if that is alright."

Oh, oh... that is right... heh, a little smile comes upon my face too, though maybe not knowing like the others, and I nod, and I bump against him when we go on and it makes me giggle, and I feel his smile touching me, grazing my ear, my cheek, my mouth.

A side exit spills out of Ribular Town, from the bright, colorful homes and wooden signs and stone walls, onto a dirt path well-trodden until it reaches the outskirts of a springy forest. My toes wriggle in grassy roots that—that _really_ tickle to the touch, he-heheh... and a strange look of serenity crosses the gaze of my beloved as he watches me giggle and leap back from some sensitive fronds.

Eventually a soft chuckle ventures out of him. "Dina, what is it that causes you t—"

"Ruuupert," I cry, tugging gently on his arm, "the grass ticklesssss! Really, really!" I voice this as I stumble over a rock and bump against him again, causing me to laugh a little harder, my eyes scrunched up from the force of it.

He stops to take my head in his hands and peer upon me, a smile breaking over his face. "Pff... Would it be better if I carried you, then?"

I think we both laugh, then... shyly. My gaze draws away from his and I shake my head. "N-Nope! Eheh... it is fine! I... I kind of like it..." Blushing, I mumble, "Is that really weird?" My cheeks puff, like Pauleen did with hers. "That is not really weird, is it..?"

"Dinaa..." his voice sweet as he draws on my name, as if unable to halt himself. "You are... very cute."

My finger snags on the edge of the coat around me. I let my head rest against his, my heart tender... "Nnnn... you are cute, tooo..."

His wavering gives way to his confusion. "Heheh... Me?"

"Y-Yeaah, you!" Before he can move, I clasp my hands to his shoulders and tug him into a kiss.

He is so cute, when he gets all bashful and nervous... and soft, so very soft... Oh, the way he folds his arms around me, the way his smile gives way into his... kiss... heheh...

We go on, though not in very much of a hurry, heh. The greenery blossoms around us; my toes eventually familiarize with the grass, kicking a little at different fronds, avoiding—to the best of my not very well honed ability—the flowers. They recover easily, like the grass, when we go by. My feet are too soft and squishy to be much harm, haha... Although I suppose the same could not be said about the boots my beloved wears. Hmmm... heheheh... but would he...

Trees and patches of shadow roll over us, replaced again by bright pockets of sunshine. Rupert voices, gently, our intertwined hands swinging as we walk, "Dina... if I may ask—and, please, do not answer if you wish not to—but I... would like to know, if you are not afraid to speak of it..." His tone draws out. Hesitance. "What was... it like? Everything that occurred?"

Oh... um... "Heh... it was a little—n-no... no, it was..." My head tilts to the ground. I release a slow breath. "It was dark. And... scary." I wince. "It was... It was more than scary. I-I cannot... I cannot say how it was, he-heheh..." I think he is surprised by how quickly, how easily I relent these things; golden eyes take care in watching over me. "Torn and... Trikko and—and everyone was with me at first, and that made it a little bit better, but... but it still did not help very much.

"Zoazoa... lived a very scary life. Mu-Much... scarier than what hap-happened to me." I bite my lip, nervously rubbing my thumb against his hand in little circles. His hold is... unrelenting: not tight, but not in any way weak, either. Heh, or maybe it is mine that feels so. "I learned about everything there. About how... much she went through. It was all... so sad. It is hard... to say how sad." Really... really sad.

I try not to think too hard about her, about what happened to her. H-Heh. "She did not like me very much. She only... left... because she felt it wrong that she... that she did what she—what she did." Again, like something, like a promise, I brush against Rupert. "After Torn left... I lost what... what little... motivation I had to, um... to keep going."

At some point we had stopped walking. My eyes go to the ground.

"I... I look back on my actions now... and that was bad. That was bad... giving up. But I—But I did. I-I am sorry... but I did. For a very long time, for—for so long have I... not cared." My lungs fill with air; I press on, because now I—now I _want_ him to know, thinking of it, thinking of _him_ , my heart static. "Zoazoa made many... illusions, in the—the world I lived in. If you want to... call it that. He-Heh... it is not in any way like this world, the one... we live in together.

My eyes begin to trail up him. "So I... I learned how to use illusions too. I-I cannot say how, but I... did. And I..." Up his chest, up his shoulders, up his neck. "I found my old memories that way. There were... so many things, he-heheh, so many things Dino must have told you about..." Up his chin, his cheeks, his... eyes, his eyes so intently focused on me. "But that is not how I... that is not now...

Ohhhh... now it is hard to say... D-Do not get nervous _now_ , Dina... not _now_ of all times... this is important...

"Rupert..." My voice catches on his name. O-Oh, Rupert... "I... p-please do—please do not l-laugh..."

His face goes quiet. "Dina... of course not. I would... never."

"H-Heh... th-thank you..." My weak smile tries to meet his and fails. "I was really... lonely. Down there. It was really... really scary down there so I—s-s- _so_ I..." My fingers bite into his hand. "S-So I _made—_ I made an... illusion of you, too.

"F-For company. There was... no better company than you." I whisper his name. "Rupert."

It leaves me numb, my heart shuddering through each beat in my chest, it makes me numb to say it aloud. I close my eyes and I try to focus on breathing, on not thinking of that terrible void I lived in for months, the prison that I called a home, the fear I called a—a _brother_ , once.

I cannot force another word out and it takes him hardly seconds of silence, cold and hard and pounding silence for him to envelop me, to pull me into him and tuck his head over mine, to press his lips into mine, to pull back, to merely watch me with such soft, soft, precious eyes.

He does not need to say it for me to know it. That he... _he_ knows, too... He knows.

Something about it should hurt, should hurt so badly, but the pain all turns to mush in my heart and I tighten my hold on him, breathing weakly, weakly breathing, my fingers in his hair, his head against mine, our bodies meshed together for such warm,warm seconds.

When I recover, when we... both recover—heheh...

When we recover, he leads me on a little ways further. A ledge—I catch a ledge forming up ahead, one where an expanse of land pans out far below, trees and a crawling, gurgling river and so much tickling grass, heheh... Before we get there, I tug on his arm and he glances back toward me, a glimmer of a smile on his lips. "Rupert..." My feet trip over the fronds. "Ruupert, the grass feels very nice..."

A peculiar looks touches him. "Are you trying to get me to take off my shoes?" Teasing grin, playful gaze.

"Nnf!" H-He got me! "Nnnng!"

Soft laughter. "Dina, why?" Such a loving face turned unto mine...

"Because—Because no reason!"

"Pff..." And then like that he shrugs. "Alright." He steps a little ways from me, and then like that he slips his socked feet out of his boots, his feet out of his socks, just like that.

My mouth pops open. "Re-Reaaally?"

When he returns to my side, he places a hand upon my head, this tender smile upon his face. "You're so funny, Dina... heh..." His lips trail to my cheek—my—my neck... and cupping my face, he laughs so gently.

And then I brush against him, our heads bumping lightly, and then I start to laugh and he laughs harder and the joy that sparkles in his gaze melts my heart... oh, Rupert...

We... Well, we eventually reach the little ledge, heheh... and we sit there, just side by side, leaning upon one another, our feet entangled over the edge, our hands entwined tightly before, heads never far from each other. It is... it is not very cold, in his coat, resting up against him, the warm breezy air blowing into us.

"Heehee..." I murmur, touching my cheek to his. "Rupert, how do you find these places? Heheheh... this is like when you showed me the cave on Ilium Island... Eheh, do you remember that? It was very pretty..." Though I guess I should not go there again soon, now that my... my body can apparently not hold heat very well, h-huh.

His smile traces mine. "Heh, yes... it was very pretty. I just... I heard and visited these islands some small number of times, before the tournament. I sometimes had spare moments, and... I explored, is all. And I... found little nooks like these, heh, just... little things." His gaze grows softer, softer... "I never had anyone to share them with for... so long. Heh... thank you, Dina. For being... that person."

His fingers catch over mine.

"Heehee..." Rupert...

And we just... we just talk, about everything, about each other, about what happened, about my family, about the memories I regained and Torn and Mistress and Mier and everyone else, too. And we... laugh. Oh, what a heartwarming laugh he has, my dear Rupert... such a tender chord... I make a small game out of it, to see how many times I can nab a laugh out of him... heheh, and I am... well, I am not left disappointed, that is certain.

I cannot say how the time passes, the sun stroking the sky, from midday to later, to later, dipping in a canvas of blue and splattering curls of effulgent sheen to blend within the very air. My Rupert with me, and I with him. Heheh... his Dina.

If there is anything I learn, it is how sorely I missed him. Ha-Haha... no wonder I was so... depressed, so lost, so forlorn before. He really does... give me a reason in my life, a motivation to continue. Haha... He makes me so happy, I cannot even say... like the fear, like the sadness, oh, how it all washes away when I watch a smile break upon his face and the precious, sweet laughter draw from his lips. I love how he pays such caring attention to what I have to say and genuinely tries to add to it, the way his heart carries so much... feeling: heh... so much pain, yet so much... hope.

I love him. That is all there is to it. I love him so much I can hardly think. His presence fills me with... love.

As the day draws out into darkness, as the horizon falls to a rippling crescendo, coating the face of my beloved with such a shaded—yet so bright sheen, as my lips part to a yawn, such a full day, I begin to stand and for a moment I think he does too. When I turn, and I realize that no, he has not stood, not at all. He turned without raising; only one leg managed.

The other bent to the ground. Wait... wait...

My lost gaze meets his, his so startlingly brilliant I feel my heart choke somewhere up in my throat. There they are, his nervous feelings, but so overflowing in affection, in joy that I hardly make it out now, even despite the seas of gold they make up deep inside of him. Hands resting behind him, he turns his full gaze to me and begins.

"Dina... Oh, my darling, how I love you. You have saved me, Dina... countless times, you have helped me with such a kind, caring heart... you have let me into your life, and thus let me open myself to someone who... bothers to listen to me, to understand me. Just by being the wonderful, happy, dear soul you are have you saved me.

In his voice I hear truth; in his gaze I see questions: and I see me mirrored within them: _Do I..._

He pauses to breathe. Blush sets alight like fire to his cheeks. He does not bother to notice. "Dina, I want to hold you through your tears no matter when they come. I want to take your hand and help you whenever you are upset, whenever you make a mistake... I-I want..." His expression shifts into that of utter... bliss. "Dina, I want... late-night, and early-morning, and... afternoon snuggles. With you." A soft laugh. "I _love_ you...

His voice, truth; his gaze, questions, _Do I_ , _do I, do I..._

"I want everything with you. Everything." His eyes brimming. "I want joy and sorrow; I want pain and smiles. I want... everything." Such weight put upon the word... my heart is throbbing. "Dina, my heart, my love... the one I hold so dear to me...

A hand to his pocket. "Dina, I—" Fumbling, pulling—out a little velvet box. "I..." Struggling with the clasp, _oh_ , my _heart_... he _cannot open it..._ "Please.

Sweet relief as the clasp hitches, pops outward. "Dina, will you...

Two glimmering rings, one marginally smaller than the other. Above, him.

"...marry me?"

He... he...

 _He—He wants... he..._

Tears clot my vision. I feel more than see my legs buckle, my body fall to the ground, the grit of dirt on my knees, the shaking coursing, filling, aching with every part of my being.

Through wet, bleary eyes, I watch him come to me, his arms around me, his presence comforting, his warmth _safety_ , oh, complete safety. My head seeks for that little nook beneath his neck and I cry, and I cry, and I _cry_ and I _cry_ as he holds me and I cannot tell if he cries too but maybe and I swallow and I struggle to say—to—to say anything, anything at all...

"Rupert," I manage, again and again and again, soft hiccups scratching his otherwise lovely name. I am not sure when but somewhere I manage it, my voice hitching, my eyes bleeding wet, but soft. _Yes_...

Faster than him I snag the little rings from their box and I sift through them absolutely blind and I cannot figure out which one is the smaller one... and his hand meets mine and I think he helps me but wait—wait, no I think he cannot... no, that is the smaller ring, it does not fit his—wait, wait, then that means the one in my palm—

Giddiness. That is all I can say. Giddiness, oh, sweet, merciful, overwhelming giddiness scorches my veins as I pull his hand back and manage to slide the larger one upon his finger, the one that fits snugly to him. But he is fast to take my wrist, ever so gently, to lay out my hand, to rest the smaller ring where it... belongs now. On me.

My tears meld into laughter.

His hand lovingly cups my cheek, his head resting against mine, his lips upon me. His voice softly brushes into these achingly sweet little giggles pouring into such a lovely sigh, his tender kisses enveloping in between, and I hear myself sometimes too, little squeaks of some emotion far transcending the mere words I have to say.

As he catches his breath, I whisper, "I do?" and he starts to laugh again, glimmering eyes bright and light like the stars dotting the sky behind his head.

"Well, yes... but there should be a ceremony too. Later. Heheh..." A hand tenderly strokes my cheek, tracing over my lips, my nose...

I puff out my cheeks and he teasingly pokes me. "But do you do too?"

He cannot look at me straight without another laugh filling him. "Yes, I do..."

We stand and we start to walk back.

He almost forgets his boots. He has to go back and get them... but I go with him too.

He is not nervous anymore.

Our hands—the ones with the rings—clasp tightly together. I ask him at some time, "When... When did you get them, Rupert? I thought they said you stayed by my side all the time?" There is no hurt, no annoyance, but wonder.

"No, no..." What a giddy smile... while he shakes his head I bump against him and stand on my toes and I kiss him. He needs a little more time to think after that. Hahaha... "I had Dino do it. I asked him to seek out if anyone was selling any, and where. He relayed back. I... well, I am not badly off after so many tournaments... and my father is... dead now. So all of it goes to me.

"Well." He halts. "Not all of it. Dinu claimed the mansion and I let her have that."

I stop, giggling. "Dinu wanted it?"

He grins. "I suppose so. I did not, and, well, something must be done with it, yes? So it is hers now. Heheh..."

And then I remember, oh, _finally_. "Oh! Oh... Rupert, were Torn and the others really sleeping?"

"Dina..." His smile goes sly. "Torn did not want to stay around. Dino and I... made an agreement, when I suffered through the... worst of my pain. After I thought you..." he trails on; there is no need to finish it. "He told me I could. That I could... propose." His fingers squeeze mine. "That I could set all of this up... the day you returned, and not even dastard _Torn_ could be in the way of it. For one day...

Leaning in closely, his lips trace my ear and I giggle. "Your brother is very... kind, Dina."

"Nnnn..." I watch our swinging hands, the glinting bands on our fingers. "I think you are kind too, Rupert... I think you are very kind..."

Such gentle laughter. "Then that means you must be as well, if I am to you." And he kisses me again.

We go back home. Torn has a lot to yell at me when I get there. He thinks the rings are too simple and thus very ugly; he thinks Rupert should get out of my face; he thinks weddings are completely, absolutely _fucking_ ridiculous and I should not partake in one. Sweet Torn does not notice that I have stopped listening somewhere. However, Trikko does; he _forgets_ , as he tells me later, oh certainly _forgets_ to tell Torn what happened.

It fills me with love.

I think about it, as I finger the little silvery ring, as he rests his head to mine, as the world falls to sleep around me, I think of him... and my heart is so warm.

 **there's a reason this is the best chapter  
there you go  
end**

 **actually there's one more short(er) chapter after this haha, it's a sort of epilogue, fills in a couple holes**

 **I mean who doesn't wanna see Dinu and Mier one more time haha at least I do**


	41. Closure

**I'd probably be sad about this being the very last chapter in such a gigantic series as I've mentioned for the past few chapters but... I dunno, I'm just sort of exhausted now, haha. I've... worked really hard on this. I guess I just got to the point where I'm too tired to care that it's almost over, haha... this happens when I write things, when I'm at the point where the complete button is so near I just... I dunno.**

 **It's kinda sad though. But it's also not, since this is all just practice anyways... but it still is.**

 **I'm confusing myself. I should probably just start.**

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 41: Closure

A month. That's as much time as they could stand during engagement: also the minimum amount they could afford to use without it being a complete disaster, what with relatives and decorations and clothes and refreshments.

A month still isn't enough to cover the elaborate plans of most weddings, hardly even a sliver of them.

But, well. Their plans weren't very elaborate. They read like _go to altar_ , _kiss_ , then _bam_ marriage alright awesome.

What took the longest was getting everyone there, since, well, some majority of the people now present tended to stray on the other half of the world. Also planning where to have it took awhile. They wanted somewhere outside, because _outside_ , but only one third of all nearby islands actually sported the environment of a nice outside wedding, and one third or less of that one third even made remote sense to shove a bunch of people and chairs and everything into without too much mud or twigs or... rampant vivosaurs.

Between two dig sites lay a particularly green field. If everyone just pointedly ignored the big, hulking, uh, _fossil cannon_ in the corner then everything would go pretty smoothly. This didn't stop a certain curly-haired brunette from tying satin white ribbons on the nozzle, but anyways.

There he stands. At the edge of the congregation, above the short but commodious rows of the people they invited—they meaning he, his betrothed... and her brother's ideal friends. His golden gaze ablaze, searching, searching for the telltale sign of orange hair, a tail, oh, something, anything. Waiting irks him and leaves his heart a little fearful. His suit, white, crisp, tailored to fit him if not perfectly, then, well, _close enough_ , shifts with him; he feels it happening and attempts to not fidget so much but it does not take long for him to start again.

Snowy white coattails give every slight motion away, flickering with the weight of his movement. Silvery white hair down to the chin frames a gentle, heart-shaped face. His lips pressed vainly together as he waits. Still a vague smile rests behind his fear.

It was _her_ idea to dye the little dahlia pinned to his front a variety of color, reds bleeding to orange to greens and purples, other hues hidden in between. His hand reaches to it and when he traces the petals he softens visibly.

In the front row sits a tall, smug dinaurian who can't keep his hands to himself but instead continually pokes the boy beside him—a pinkette, sharing little giggles as they watch the poor groom fidget.

"Dina probably got the thing stuck on her and now she's all embarrassed or something," mutters her brother. The second twists his lips into a snide grin and snorts: "That's not very nice of you to say."

Not that he cares. "Ehhhh. Rupert's just Rupert. I mean, you know this, Mier." The dinaurian shrugs. Someone stuffed him into a tux—he's only renting it. Secretly likes it... not that _she's_ gonna find out about it. Stupid _pinky_. "He'll be fine once she shows up. Ohh, Sis..."

Mier closes his eyes for a moment, musing. "Mmmh... yeah, I guess he does. Poor guy, though. I'd sure as heck get nervous if _my_ bri—uh— _whomever_ took awhile to get ready."

At that, Dino raises an eyebrow, a subtle grin lighting his face, but otherwise he's unresponsive.

The row behind him seats the pinky he thought of. "Diiiinooo," she barks in a hushed yell, "quit _pick_ in' on him, you can't blaaame himm... besides, you'll be a terrible husband if you go on like this."

He turns his bemused head. "Rosieeee, I didn't saay I was gonna get married one daaaay." He puffs his cheeks at her. "I'm talkin' bout Rupy."

"Well, yeaaah," she grumbles, "but you promised you'd marry _me_ if you ever got feelings again! And I gotta make sure you're _alllways_ a good Dino just in case that ever happens!"

"Uhm." Mier suddenly ducks his blushing face. "Well then. There it goes."

"There what goes?" And Dino turns at that, mouth slightly agape.

"Uh. Nothing." Which only ensures that Mier is hiding something. Rosie jerks over her chair to swipe at the boy but he only swerves back and sends her teetering precariously enough to let her smack her poor face against the top of his chair.

She tilts back again, whining under her breath. But as she does so her eyes water and she bites at her lip, twisting her feet at the ankles. Her thick, layered pink dress seeps down past her feet, reaching the ground where her toes don't, and she kicks at it a little absently.

The invitation came by word of mouth via Dynal. Her grandpa was preeeeetty dubious about the whole idea of letting her go with a bunch of mostly-older-people to partake in the whole wedding deal, but Doctor Diggins was going too and that boosted her graces. She had to refrain from mentioning Dino too often or else Grandpa would reconsider... Heh, _he_ knew how she still felt around him.

Even though she sees it: obvious, like freaking _sunshine_ on a sunny day. She sees the way that other guy is and how he's the one Dino sat next to, not Rosie. And she knows, oh, she _knows_ her dear friend Dino doesn't mean it, doesn't mean to shove her off... but she is kind of used to it by now. He's so... oblivious. _Urrrh_.

Lifting her head, she peeks out at the dinaurian again. "Diinooooo!"

"Wahaaaaat," he calls from his position now all bent up next to Mier.

" _Pippy_ still thinks I'm the best, you know!"

He pauses. "But... no, that was... that was _Duna_ that he, wait..." Dino's slate gray eyes twinge. "Wait a—Rosie, are you trying to throw me off?" His suspicious stare rolls over to her guilty face. To try and throw him off _more_ , she puffs her cheeks and shakes her head angrily, not realizing that the action merely embellishes her childish behavior and hurt feelings.

"Aww..." There his gaze picks up. "Sorry, uh..." He tugs at his lip. "You... okay? Heh, I didn't really think of how all this meant to you, I'm... sorry." Wincing. Moving on. "I'm really happy you could come. Okay? It... made me happy to know you made it. That you're here with us.

His eyes drop. "And yeah, Pippy's... happy to see you."Pause; his face twitches. _Right, Pippy?_

The vivosaur in question smothers the girl in approval. That makes her feel a little better.

Well, until she glances over and flinches. Her shrill tone erupts: "Hey! Dino, where the _heck_ did Jkonna go? And Raptin! They're... what the heck!"

"I dunno." He notes this and shrugs, a sudden urge to laugh overcoming his features. "They have legs, so uh, they could be anywhere by now." With a nonchalant shrug, he turns around; then a hand crumples over his features and he tries not to chuckle too loudly. So Jkkie finally took his advice, _huh_. Terrible timing, but still.

They'll be back in time.

Mier slowly raises his head and smirks slightly, sighing. He turns to Rosie, catching her magenta gaze with his golden, and he sort of smiles, sort of grimaces. He doesn't... look very sad, though. "So you're that girl Dino brings up so much of the time, huh. You must mean a good deal to him."

" _Yeah_ ," she mutters, "well _you_ obviously mean a lot to him _too_ , huhhhh..." Pouting. Wh-What immaturity. She's not being immature at _all_.

With a salty grin, the pinkette slowly turns back from her and shakes his head, his disheveled layers of light pink hair bouncing with the motion. Bits of studded earrings glisten with the sudden rise and fall of light—most notably this funny gold one that, if you look at it long enough, almost starts to resemble a human... face. Ewwww... Rosie turns away too, kicking at Dino's chair.

From her side, Doug Diggins smiles vaguely and closes his eyes. "Ah, to be young."

"You're not _that_ old, you know," mutters the turquoise-haired woman beside him. "Honestly, none of us are. If you want old, talk to _Bullwort_ or something, he's pretty old."

He rolls his turquoise eyes. "Well. I guess you have a point, Vivian. Still, how young these two are to be tying the knot, huh, haha. I haven't even gotten married yet." Mentioning it airily, like a hint to the woman.

"Shut up." Her face screws up. "We haven't kissed yet. S-So what? L-Let me _live_ , I'm slower when it comes to relationships..."

"Pff, you thought I was—You thought—? Oh, Vivian..." He turns away, chortling softly.

A scowl twitches up on his girlfriend's face. "Uggh, I'm telling Snivels and Rex about this when we get back."

"Ahh, tattling on your boyfriend, so _that's_ how you wanna play it..." A musing grin strolls along his face.

"Shhhhut up, Doug..." And she leaves it at that, her scowl threatening to fall, but by a bigger snarl or benign smile is hard to say.

Behind them, in the third and final row on the left side, a certain trio sit together, accompanied by a certain pink-wearing fourth who they let come even though he wasn't explicitly invited. He has to awkwardly share a chair with one of the others. Despite the majority of formal dress crowding around them on all sides, these weeds to those petunias fidget there in their usual punk garb. None of them have much more to offer; and besides, the Dynal guy didn't _say_ they had to wear fancy clothes. Plus, uh... not like these losers could afford much outside of what they already wear. That being said, the weird digadig girl with the pink hair _had_ told them she could give them a discount, what with that whole clothing shop she's starting up with the other guy.

Cole's logic was something around the fact that these are their _rivals_ , and taking _anything_ out of pocket from them is inherently _wrong_ , it just _is_. It sounded all fine and dandy in his head until his short redheaded girlfriend reminded him that they were going to their said rivals' _wedding_ and that didn't really make them rivals anymore, now did it?

Lester just couldn't care less, if he's totally honest.

In the end, it's probably more nerves and a lack of caring that left them sitting huddled in their usual ripped clothes and gaudy makeup. And _Ryne_. Who's... well. _Ryne_.

The curly-haired brunette with the white satin ribbons has been sitting in his chair the wrong way for the entire wedding, and if the groom looked over and figured this out he would probably lose it or something right there and then. But he hasn't, so it's all good in the hood for old Todd. It's not _his_ fault, he's just checking to make sure his foster sister—man, so weird to think he's the _foster_ brother now, because she also has a _real_ brother—is okay.

"Lukkkkkk, why's she taking so looooong... oh no! She didn't stand Rupy up, did she! Gasp, what a scandal!" A tan, freckled hand covers his mouth. He's not actually in shock.

The bluenette in question, situated the _right_ way beside him, snorts. He's in some of Rupert's old clothes. Again. "We both know that isn't happening. We've all seen the way she looks at him. She probably just... I dunno, the dress you and Pauleen made her was _huge_ , she's probably just having trouble trying to get into it."

"Hmmmmph. That's Pauleenie's fault for being a dingus."

Luk covers his mouth as a laugh bursts out. "Uh- _huh_. Well. You're the one who wanted to use as much fabric as possible."

"Noooouuuhhhhh! You're lyyyiiing!" He twists and turns in his white satin dress.

"Yeah, yeah." Luk's used to his behavior. But anyways, they both know who's really lying, so it's fine. "Why the dress anyway? And Dino with his tuxedo? Like, I thought dinaurians didn't wear clothes? I mean except for the funny cloak thing their dad has. Like... still! What the heck."

Todd goes quiet. His face is soft. "I think she figured out that Rupert liked it or something. Not that—Not that he _minded_ if she didn't, but... I dunno, I think tradition's important to him. It... meant a lot to him that she went out of her way with that." But he can't stay soft for long. "That sounds like a really funny ki—"

"Oh my _gosh_." Shoving himself up and backwards in his chair— _sorry Rupert_ —he forces a hand over the freckled boy's mouth. "Todd, _shut_ up." His face reveals a half-amused, mostly-annoyed bluenette.

The brunette goes on muttering garbled incomprehension for a few seconds—obviously made-up words just for the fun of it—until he halts and then spits slobber all across Luk's hand. "BbbhhHHHHBB!" When Luk releases, his face a contorted sense of disgust, Todd cries: "DINA'S HEEEREE! THERE SHE IISS!" Pointing frantically back at the white blobbish thing with a hand around the taller figure beside it, slowly making their way toward the plains.

With a hit to the side of his head, Luk forces his friend to turn before Rupert sees them. He's smiling kind of stupidly, doesn't mention the amount of relief going on in his heart. Todd doesn't mention it either but he knows he sees it, huh. Todd...

The girl in the seat to their left stands erect and Todd takes note of her like he hadn't before. "Ahhh, she's _finally_ here?" Her emerald eyes blaze as she turns her head, bubblegum hair flying by in some rather intricate-looking braids. "Man, poor thing... I probably should've helped her into it or something." She knows the dress best; of course she does—she made it herself. Mostly. Todd wasn't that helpful.

"Pff, Pauleenieeeeee," murmurs the boy on her right. A sleepy—contended—smile coats his face.

Pauleen scowls. "You diga-don't have to—gahh, I guess what's diga-done is diga-done. At least she managed. That's what matters." The digadig's large, fierce orbs spin with memories as the girl in the thick, white dress begins to pull past, her father on her left, his arm around hers, a demure smile just touching the lips of both faces.

She blinks; family resemblance, that there. Pauleen kicks a little in her white satin dress, her hands nervously cupped over each other, her bangs shadowing her face. Because of her position, she misses when the redhead—her voluminous locks also braided—and a different dinaurian pass as well.

It's just a little hard for her to watch. She's putting all of Dina's feelings, real or not, on top of her, and it's... gaah, she's so _nervous_ now... In her eyes she watches as the girl sputters and Pauleen helps assist her in clothes shopping, a few-months-old memory now. Dim smile on her face. Told Dina how she felt then. Kind of went over Dina's head.

That's alright.

The row in front of Pauleen seats a much angrier female. Beside her sits her subdued grandfather. "Hhhhgh, she's so _stupid_ ," mutters the blonde under her breath, "doesn't even friggin _realize_ how much she _scared_ him..."

"Oh, Dinu, she came. Let her be, wot?" voices her grandfather. Not that she listens.

Kicking her feet at the chair in front of her, which was empty up until now. When the redhead takes it, Dinu kicks it one last time for good measure and the digadig starts, a hand curling into a fist as she turns and—and so nearly and—and the dinaurian beside her gently wrenches her hand away.

Dinu doesn't quite notice. What she _does_ notice is when the bride trips over her own dress and for a good moment there goes sprawling. Slapping a hand over her mouth, she tries not to laugh too loudly.

What? She has _manners_.

She turns toward her grandfather and mutters, "I can't believe he chose _this_ one. What the _hell_ does he see in—"

"Oh ho! Dinu! Hold your tongue, dear! Let the boy be!"

A hiss. "Stupid, stupid, st _upid_..."

Dina couldn't even control her damn _body heat_ anymore, that's what it's all come to. Course, she didn't understand that until Dinu had to go out of her way to enunciate _why_ , how having that ancient living off of her for so long was bound to mess her up a little, almost to the equivalent of ripping out a piece of her actual flesh-and-blood body when she was gone.

Rupert should care more than _oh, it's fine, I'll just let her have my coat and be around her all the time, that obviously will keep her from dying_. Yeah, go to hell. Maybe it will but—but still. Go to hell anyways.

Why did she come in the first place. Ugh. That was stupid too. Now she's supporting them and everything. In public. Sort of. Hhhhhgh. She curls her arms around her suit—there was no way in hell _any_ one was getting a dress on her. Whatever. The boy behind her's in a dress. Not like it matters.

Dynal is fast to assist his daughter in standing again, a small laugh in his eyes. He helps her brush off the stubborn tendrils that cling to the fabric and they go on again. Her head has fallen somewhat; he bends over to murmur in her ear, "Do not worry. Rupert—See? He does not mind. And nobody is mad at you for falling."

Watching the struggle on her face, Dynal gently touches her shoulder. He remembers, then, when he first saw her again, when he had the coordinates correct on the starship and managed to send himself to the Caliosteo Islands without striding along for as much time as it took his poor son to find her.

Night. It had been night. She slept in a chamber with a boy—a _boy_! _—_ curled around her. To his approach she was fast to wake and fast to realize, gaze dawning, _Dad, Dad_ , and take off up to him. Such... a precious little thing, so excited, so joyous. Like her brother.

And the boy was fast to wake after her, to tiredly take her side, to glance at Dynal, to glance back at her, and then to... to _bow_ to him. To murmur _King_ in a very quiet tone.

Dynal was about to tell him he had no need to bow when his daughter found this the perfect time to tell her dad that this was her _betrothed_ , and they were getting _married_. Something his son had... pointedly neglected to tell him. A boyfriend? Dina had a boyfriend? And now they were _engaged_? Already? He had just... reunited with her.

But he grew to know the boy, over the course of the month. And he sees now what Rupert shares with his daughter. Something... special. It reminds him of long ago when he first met Amethyst, the woman who was to be his wife... his now late wife. Peace be with her.

Dina manages to get over her fall and raises her head again. She catches the gaze of her beloved and Dynal watches as she tries to hold in a small, nervous laugh. Her eyes dance in her head. She almost drags _him_ to the altar. Dear girl... With a small smile, the white-haired dinaurian leaves her by Rupert and goes to sit next to his son.

"She looks super nervous," mutters Dino.

His smile grows. "That is what you think. You have never been married; you do not have a clue, Son."

"Buhhhhhhh..."

The ceremony begins. At the front of the altar stands a tall redhead, his curly hair odd-looking, like it's warped without the monstrous hat he so constantly wears upon it. "Howdy, all," he starts off. "We're gathered here cuz of two wonderful people we support and care about." Pausing to breathe, his face relaxes slightly. Alright, it's started, he can do this. Not so hard. "To join their hearts in love and... to unite this couple in marriage."

Okay... okay. It's kinda scary, nothing at all like running three islands simultaneously: if he's honest, that's a heckuva lot easier. At least if he says something wrong he can throw it off or elaborate and it won't sound too stupid; now and _here_... well. That's another story, huh. But he guesses he's the most qualified for a job like this. Probably. Maybe.

It gets easier as he goes on, the initial shock of words in such a hushed, formal situation receding with the beating of his heart, stronger, stronger. He asks if anyone wishes to voice dissent against the couple and then realizes all of a sudden that Dinu is starting to stand up and quickly rushes in _then forever hold yer peace_ and it's all good. Dinu loudly slams her butt down into her chair but that's _fine_.

From the front row on the left, two individuals aren't paying as much attention as they probably would've liked to. "Raptin, we weren't _that_ late, were we," mutters the redhead in a hushed tone.

"Well... maybe a little bit. But nobody pointed it out." Dusty yellow irises seek out Dino from across the aisle. He's invested enough in the program that he doesn't notice whatsoever. "No, I think we are fine. Do not worry so much, Jkonna." _Jihahnah._ Her cheeks redden.

"Hhhgh." Jkonna pouts. "Yeah, but... Gaaah. I have a good reason this time..." She squirms in a voluminous dress of lava red. " _I_ was helping her into her diga-dress at least..." S-So what if she saw Raptin and got distracted and ended up _telling him everything_ at only the _worst moment_... It wasn't _that_ bad... actually no it sort of was... they were kinda late... like, noticeably late, like, when _Dina_ was halfway there late.

Raptin's not very bothered by any of this. "And I escorted you on the way back. You were nervous. The end. It is _fine_."

Her gaze drops. "Yeah, but..." She can't articulate this thumping in her chest. "Nnnnghhh..." It turns out she doesn't need to; the dinaurian casually slips his hand over hers and that makes her feel a little better but it's _not like she's gonna tell him that_.

Oh wait. She already did. Hence freaking _why_ she was—Nnnnnn...

Her eyes go back up to the trembling girl in the thick white dress.

Dina has heard maybe two of the words Joe spoke. She was—She was trying to listen... but now her heart is beating really fast and it is hard to focus... f-focus on anyone outside of Ru-Rupert, that is... Maybe if she pretends she heard and nods every once in awhile then it will be okay. Or maybe not. Rupert is not nodding every once in awhile.

But is he listening? He does not look like he is listening either. W-Well.

Sorry, Joe... Torn is not here to chastise her, but Trikko is nearby and she can hear his soft, silent chortles, feel them shaking his shoulders. Up past the altar is where many of their vivosaurs lie; not only hers and Mistress but the ones Dino brought with him, and Jkonna... a lot of them.

That makes her happy...

She starts when Rupert, a bemused smile on his face, glances at her pointedly. Oh! Ohhhh, it must have—it must be the time that—ohh, then she—she needs to—

"I-I do!"

And that must be the correct answer because nobody calls her out afterward. Heheh... Bashful, she glances back at him. He can tell she was not listening... but he knows she means it, too. That is good. That is... That is what matters, in the end.

Dina manages to focus enough to hear Joe asking her beloved, then; "Rupert, will you take Dina to be your one and only wife, to love and honor her... to cherish her always?" Her heart gives this sort of trill and oh, no wonder Rupert is listening now, he—he heard the opposite earlier, when Dina gave _her_ vow.

It is... nice to hear.

"I do."

Such a gentle, gentle smile upon his face. Dina nearly starts toward him when she—when she remembers— _wait—_ wait, not _yet_. "Well, then ya can now kiss the bride." Okay _now_.

She folds her hands around his and realizes suddenly that those funny high heels Pauleen got for her make—make the height difference _weird_ and she is closer to his height than hers and Rupert laughs softly at her confusion as he pulls her into his arms and she presses her lips against his and that is it. There it is.

…

Eventually the whole lot of them have to figure out living arrangements because everyone-crashing-at-Joe's-penthouse only works for so long. Also it's sort of pretty awkward.

Dino's the one who suggests it. Tells them about this old island next to where he came from, how it used to be this place for a, uhhhh, veery "secret" organization's base, but the dump got cleared up and now it's open. And since, y'know, _Guhnash_ , _Zongazonga, Zoazoa,_ they could go _on_ , it'd probably be fine if they went and made a house, lived there or something.

The siblings. Her husband. His best friend. They're not exactly sure what to do with their lives now that the ancients are gone and they don't have to fossil fight—a great relief for the child prodigy, but a great mystery as well. Because what else is there in the world?

Jkonna is very down on training other people in fossil fighting but the only way she's doing that is if her boyfriend can keep her from, well. Letting her anger get the best of her.

Punching children is a very terrible idea. But... he believes in her. Raptin.

Mier comes up with this whole extravagant idea to make a book, or something, out of their exploits, but why the heck would someone _write_ about all that? At least that's Dino's thoughts on it. _He's_ not, that's for sure, and his poor sister he found out is illiterate, so.

Some of their friends already know. Todd, Pauleen. Luk too. Rosie's... getting there. She keeps talking about making something _so_ amazing that Dino _has_ to marry her, though nobody's really sure how that's supposed to work.

It's a little sad. Splitting up. Though of course it's not like it'll be forever. And even if something _does_ come up, well, they've been to _hell_ and back as Dinu so proudly proclaims. She wants to fix up the mansion and figure out what it's worth—their old BareBones friends are helping her with it. They honestly might just live there. It's hard to say. Building stuff takes awhile, as they all have realized in a number of ways by now. Much longer than destruction.

Torn's happy as long as he's still useful. He has this grand idea that he calls sleeping on the carpet floor and spooking anyone who walks by. He's been lacking in sleep lately—honestly for a long time. Keh. He and Dina both, huh. He meets Droplet eventually and the second almost obliterates the first, then they come to an understanding of sorts. He tries not to think about how much more lax Droplet is because he is _never_ telling her that he thinks she's cool. That is _not_ happening.

Bliss and Mistress are fast friends, as is Mistress with almost everyone. The latter—the mapo queen—manages to convince some of the others that they could help train youngsters with Jkonna and help with the building of that house on what was once BB Base and help whatever comes after that.

There _was_ quite a stock of books in the Fossil Stadium... and that's not exactly a good place to _leave_ a bunch of books... They could do something with that.

Well. They don't have a plan but they do have each other... and, well. Something. They have _something_.

Rupert turns and smiles back to his wife. Something indeed.

 **Haha... I guess that's a simple ending, but I mean how else would it go, y'know?**

 **I'm tired but... also kind of sad. Heh.**

 **Well that's... the last story I ever planned writing. I mean, I have a bunch of oneshot ideas now, and I'm open to take requests and things, but that's... wow. Haha, my dream from almost four years ago finally... was achieved, I guess?**

 **I sincerely thank you, if you got all the way to the end, heheheh... ^^ I know it wasn't easy. (or maybe you just skimmed here and there... not that I mind xD It's a long story!)**

 **Thank you very much. I've had... a little too much fun getting this far, hahaha...**

 **~Starry's Light, April 16, 2017 (Easter! Happy Easter!)**


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